Legacy
by RoniMikaelson
Summary: AU. As Harry travels to Hogwarts for the first time, he finds friends in the form of the daughter of Peter Pettigrew, the son of Remus Lupin and the daughter of Sirius Black. As Harry begins to unravel the secrets and hidden dangers of the school, he realizes that he and his friends may be the only ones that can put a stop to the war brewing around them... On Hiatus
1. The End

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

* * *

 _October 31st, 1981_

They were supposed to be safe. Everything was supposed to be fine. But it wasn't. It was falling apart.

Lily Potter ran up the stairs, feet slipping on the hardwood, hair falling in her face, cradling Harry in her arms like a lifeline. She heard the last words she ever wanted to hear:

" _Avada Kedavra!_ " Green light flashed around the corner and there was a sickening thump.

"James." Her heart was in her throat; she wasn't sure how she'd gotten her husband's name past her lips. She turned, even more unsteady than before, and rushed into the nursery. She shut the door behind her, a useless attempt at protection, and searched for an escape. She knew there wasn't one.

 _They were going to die_.

The realization, along with the fact that she would never see James again no matter what happened, hit her like a punch to the gut. She started crying, wanting to be stronger but not able to fight the misery that overwhelmed her.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Slow, steady. Like the Dark Lord had all the time in the world. She scrambled to the crib and lowered Harry into it. Harry was crying now; she didn't know how much he understood about what was going on, but he was smart enough to know something was very, very wrong.

She kneeled in front of the bars, gripping them so tightly her knuckles went white. She looked at him, memorizing every bit about him. His button nose, his unruly hair, the eyes that James said matched hers. She stared him, hearing the footsteps get closer and closer.

"Harry, listen to me." He was only a year old. She knew he wouldn't understand her hushed whisper. But she had to say it anyway. She had to. "Mommy loves you. Daddy loves you. You are loved, Harry. You are so loved."

The door was blasted off its hinges; Lily flattened herself against the side of the crib as the door hit the floor. She whirled, hands still wrapped around the bars, trying to block Harry from whatever Voldemort would throw at them.

"Please, please, have mercy!" She begged, knowing it was useless. This man, if he could even be called that, did not have a soul. He didn't care about anything, let alone her child. Her baby. She kept at anyway. "Not Harry! Not _Harry_! I'll do anything! Not him!"

"Step aside, foolish girl!" His wand was pointed at her; she wanted to look away but she couldn't. She stared at the wand, tears welling up. She shook her head. She wouldn't move; she couldn't. Moving meant he would kill Harry. She'd die before that happened. " _MOVE!_ "

"NO!" She screamed back, shaking but not moving an inch from her protective position in front of Harry. She heard Harry crying and whimpering behind her. She wanted nothing more than to grab him, hold him and never let him go. But she was not going to move.

"This is your final warning-."

" _NO!_ "

" _Avada Kedavra_!"

Green light filled the house. Only seconds later, the roof was blown out. The Fidelius Charm surrounding the house broke; the muggles could see the crumbling house. In mere hours, every witch and wizard in the world would know what had happened that night.

* * *

 _July 20th, 1985_

Marlene McKinnon was not the type of the girl that turned into a sobbing mess when something went wrong. It was what Sirius had admired about her, her quiet strength, her intelligence, her out-standing belief that hope was the most powerful thing in the world. So she tried to remain that woman, the one that could look on the bright side of every situation.

And she was getting better. Slowly but surely. The overwhelming feeling of loneliness was ebbing away into something more like content again. She had moved back in with her parents; without Sirius or the Potter family or any of her other friends it was just easier to live with someone else while she worked and raised her daughter. Her parents welcomed her home, full of sympathy and none of the I-Told-You-So's regarding her choice in husbands that she'd expected.

She knew Sirius wouldn't betray his friends. But killing Peter and a group of innocent muggles? She couldn't wrap her head around any of it and she wasn't sure she wanted to.

The Ministry was rounding up the last of the Death Eaters, Voldemort's followers. She had a steady job as the entertainment section editor of the Daily Prophet. Happiness might not have been the word she'd used to describe her life, but it was certainly content and cozy.

She walked through the streets of Diagon Alley, heading towards the apartment above her parents' shop. She held a bag on her arm; she'd promised her daughter she'd pick up some Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans on her way home and she had made good on that promise by buying more than a few boxes. Phoebe had just turned five earlier that month; she'd call the large supply a late birthday present to go along with the many other things she and her parents had spoiled the child with.

An explosion rocked the street and sent Marlene flying. She landed with a sickening crack, blood pouring from her head as screams erupted around her and Death Eaters started dueling with the few brave wizards that went to meet them. The flames flickered on the remains of the street-side store, a desperate, last ditch effort terrorist act.

Marlene's eyes were open, glazed over with death, just another statistic in the war as people around her ran for cover.

Spells flew everywhere and shouting filled the streets. Even from inside one particular loft apartment, the chaos could be heard and people were reacting on instinct, as if the war had never really ended at all.

One second, Phoebe was playing on the floor with her toys. The next, her grandma had put her in the broom cupboard and warned her to stay there. She wondered what was going on, clutching her toy dog to her chest. Something told her this was not some sort of game but she couldn't for the life of her figure out what else it was.

She peeked through the keyhole, trying to see what was happening. Suddenly a loud bang made her drop her dog and cover her ears. Even through her hands, she could hear maniac laughter. Green light flashed and hit her grandmother. Phoebe jumped back, rubbing her eyes. When she returned to the keyhole, she saw her grandma and grandpa lying on the floor, completely still.

Phoebe was just about to turn the knob, to tell them that it wasn't funny to scare her like that, but someone else came into view. Phoebe let out a squeak of surprise and then clamped her hand over her mouth. The figure turned towards the cupboard.

She backpedaled, snatched up her stuffed dog and ducked down to hide among the coats. One of them fell over on top of her. She curled up, trying to make herself invisible. She didn't know what was happening or why, but she knew she didn't want to be found.

The door creaked open and she buried her face in her stuffed dog. The coat covered her completely and she sat stock still. The door banged shut again.

She waited, listening and crying as quietly as she could. Footsteps headed away from the cupboard. Then there was... nothing. No sound. No flashing lights. Just a crushing feeling of fear as Phoebe huddled underneath the coat and waited for something, anything, else to happen.

That was how the Aurors found her hours later, huddled in a dark closet, the last of her family.

* * *

 _October 7th, 1987_

Dorcas Meadowes hated full moons even more than she hated her first name. It meant that her husband was suffering. She hated the feeling of uselessness that came with waiting for it all to be over. Remus had taken to chaining himself up in a cave deep in the woods whenever the full moon came around, leaving her to sit and worry whilst trying to pretend she was fine for their son's sake.

She sat in her favorite armchair by the window, blonde hair falling out of its bun, trying to focus on her book but her mind wandering elsewhere. Thomas was tucked into bed, the moon was high in the sky and there were several more hours to go until morning came.

There was a crashing sound outside.

Dorcas turned her head towards the window, peering into the shadowy yard. One of the flower pots was lying shattered on the walkway. Frowning, Dorcas stood, setting her book down in her vacated seat. Picking up her wand, she went to the door. She hesitated, wondering if she should go any further. Then she shook her head and unlatched the door. The worst thing out there was Remus and she wasn't scared of him.

She stepped out onto the porch, shutting the door behind her.

"Lumos." Her wand lit up and she looked around the yard with her new source of light. She didn't see anything, so she continued on off the porch and down to the end of the walkway where the shattered flowerpot was. She nudged a piece of it with her the toe of her flat, frowning.

A low growl erupted behind her, freezing her as her heart pounded against her rib cage. Slowly, Dorcas managed to turn around, holding her wand outstretched in front of her. It was a werewolf. She knew just by looking at it that it wasn't Remus either. It was larger than Remus; she knew because she'd seen him as a werewolf before, sneaking after the boys when they went to the Shrieking Shack. It's eyes glowed and glared at her. She saw its teeth; it looked like it was smiling at her, a cruel and vicious smile.

She couldn't get to the house. It was standing right in her path. Her hand shook, the light from her hand flickering as her focus on the simple spell wavered.

The werewolf stalked closer, his snarls ringing in her ears.

With only one option left, she turned tail and ran into the woods. Dorcas could hear it chasing her, catching up as she tried to stay out of the reach of its dangerous claws and teeth. She pointed her wand behind her.

"Stupefy!" She could tell she'd hit him from the howl of pain; she kept running, dodging roots and branches, not looking anywhere but at what was in front of her.

Humans couldn't outrun a werewolf; not forever, anyway. But what other choice did she have? Her mind reeled, trying to remember any other spell that would help her. Could she truly cast an unforgivable curse? She slowed and then turned on her heel, intent to try. There was nothing behind her.

Breathing heavily, she looked up at the sky. The moon was still full. There was no chance that the werewolf had simply turned back.

She kept alert, glancing around, trying to watch her front, sides and back at the same time. _Where was it?_ Her thoughts went exactly where she didn't want them to go: her son. Thomas was alone in the house and she hadn't even locked the door behind her. Would a werewolf even be held back by a locked door? There was nothing a werewolf couldn't break down standing between it and her son.

Dorcas started forward; she needed to get back to the house one way or another.

A branch snapped. She paused, hoping against hope she had done it. Another snapped without her moving.

She whirled, wand raised, and claws slashed her arm and knocked her to the ground. She screamed as the werewolf bit into the flesh of her side, claws raking her legs and chest. She screamed and tried to grab her wand but she couldn't move, couldn't think, except for to scream at the top of her lungs at the pain.

Then it was off her.

She managed to turn her head and saw another werewolf snarling and fighting the bigger one. _Remus_. She tried to stay awake. Tried to think about anything other than the pain that engulfed her and the blood that was slowly soaking her clothes. Dorcas tried to focus on Thomas's sandy hair and goofy grin. On Remus's sweet smile and the feel of his arms around her.

The snarling grew further away, or perhaps she was just imagining it.

Slowly, she let her eyes close and felt herself fade away...


	2. The Beginning

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

* * *

 _June 23_ _rd_ _, 1991_

"Up! Get up! Now!" The shrill screech of Petunia Dursley awoke Harry Potter, accompanied by her fist banging on the small door of the broom cupboard. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove.

He rolled onto his back on his mattress on the floor and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before.

His aunt was back outside the door.

"Are you up yet?" She demanded.

"Nearly."

"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday." Harry groaned. "What did you say?" His aunt snapped through the door.

"Nothing, nothing..." Dudley's birthday... how could he have forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. After pulling a spider off one of them, he put them on. He was used to spiders; the cupboard was full of them. On the shelves that surrounded them, half of them were filled with cleaning supplies and old, broken things. The rest he used for his own possessions, like the too big, hand-me-down clothes from Dudley and the few toys he was allowed to keep himself 'quiet and busy', mostly things Dudley didn't want. Behind all of that, he kept his most important possessions, the things he didn't want anyone else to find. His tin of toy soldiers he enacted little battles with. His little box of Lego's he could build castles with. His favorite book, The Polar Express, which was given to him by his best friend.

Serena Larkin was his best, and only friend, at school. She always seemed to have candy, or half a sandwich or a second muffin to share with him. He just felt bad he never had anything to share with her. She lived just down the street, with her mother and younger sister. Sometimes, when the Dursley's didn't want to deal with him, they dumped him with them. Those were the best days; Ms. Larkin was an excellent cook and Harry never tired of beating Serena at board games or getting beaten at the same thing by Serena's sister, Caitlyn.

When Harry was dressed, he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise. Unless of course it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favorite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast.

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose.

The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he got it.

"In the car crash when your parents died." She had said. "And don't ask questions." Don't ask questions; that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.

"Comb your hair!" He barked, by way of a morning greeting. About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way: all over the place.

Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel. Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.

Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.

"Thirty-six." He concluded, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mommy and Daddy."

"All right, thirty-seven then." Dudley said, going red in the face. Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over. Aunt Petunia obviously sensed danger, too, because she said quickly:

"And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?"

Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly:

"So I'll have thirty ... thirty..."

"Thirty-nine, sweetums."

"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."

"Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" Uncle Vernon chuckled as he ruffled Dudley's hair.

At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.

"Bad news, Vernon. Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head in Harry's direction. Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Harry's heart gave a leap.

Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.

"Now what?" Aunt Petunia demanded, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this. Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself that it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again.

"We could phone Marge." Uncle Vernon suggested.

"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy." The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like that, as though he wasn't there. Or, rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.

"I could go to the Larkin's." Harry piped up, trying not to sound too happy about it. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia glared at him for a moment, debating it.

"Well, it's better than bringing him along." Aunt Petunia finally gave in and Harry fought off a smile.

Within a few minutes, Dudley's friend arrived and Harry was sent off to walk to the Larkin house. It was only three four houses away, painted a lavender color as opposed to the dull grey of the rest of the houses. Harry walked up to the porch and knocked on the dark purple door.

It swung open within seconds and Ms. Larkin stood there. She was a tall woman, with dark skin and curly brown hair. She was wearing, as usual, a nice blouse, slacks and heels. Harry usually felt under dressed when he went to her house. But, despite her professional attire, she smiled warmly and welcomed him inside. She didn't ask why he was there but instead told him that Serena was up in her bedroom and that he could go right up.

The wall opposite of the staircase railing was covered in framed pictures. They were mostly of Serena and Caitlyn over the years. Harry had never seen any other family members at their house or heard Serena talk of any beyond her father, who had died shortly after Caitlyn was born. No pictures of him were hung on the wall and Harry had gotten the impression early on that, whether the girls wanted to talk about their father or not, Ms. Larkin avoided the subject at all times.

Harry jogged up the stairs and, once on the second floor, made a beeline for the back bedroom. He knocked on the barely closed door for politeness and was greeted with an immediate 'come in'. He nudged open the door and slipped inside.

Serena looked up and surprise, then a smile, flashed across her face.

"Harry! I thought you were mum. What are you doing here so early?" She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, her pet rat resting on her knee, as she sketched in a notebook. Harry jumped onto her bed next to her, barely remembering to keep his muddy shoes off the bed. The entire family tended to be neat-freaks of sorts. Even though Serena was only a few months older than Harry himself at eleven, she dressed similar to her mother, just in brighter colors. That day it was a white top, skinny jeans and a teal blazer jacket. All three girls were almost up-tight, curt in public and the head their classes or work stations.

"It's Dudley-kins birthday." That was all Harry needed to say to earn a nod of understanding. Serena was in their school year and had encountered Dudley many times. She knew just how awful the entire family could be, though Harry kept most of it to himself. This was the girl who had sobbed all the way home from school after seeing a stray cat limping into an alley because it was just so sad. Her pet rat, Monet, was merely an old, nine-toed rat she'd found in the backyard and decided to care for. Harry didn't need her crying over the every-day happenings of the Dursley household. It made him uncomfortable to have her crying next to him.

"Well, that just means you get to stay here all day!" Serena reminded him with a smile. She collected Monet in her arms, cradling him against her chest, and stood to go look at her shelf of board games. "What do you want to play first?"

The morning was spent lying stomach-down on Serena's carpeted floor, making their way through her collection of games. She managed to beat Harry at Candy Land and Uno but lost three consecutive times at Risk. It was towards the end of the third game, which Caitlyn had joined and helped Harry beat her sister for the sole purpose of then turning it around and playing against him one-on-one, that Ms. Larkin came into the room.

"It's a lovely day outside. Shouldn't you kids be out playing?" It was more of an order than a suggestion.

"But, mum, we're having such fun in here avoiding all sunlight and social interactions." Caitlyn informed her, the nearly ten year old having already mastered her own brand of dry humor. Ms. Larkin rolled her eyes and went to sit on the edge of Serena's bed next to her eldest daughter, who was back to sketching as she waited for Caitlyn and Harry to finish their game.

"Why don't we all go out for the day?" Ms. Larkin suggested and the three kids perked up at the idea.

"Where?"

"Where does everyone want to go? The park-?" Serena shook her head quickly; she wasn't much of a physical person and wouldn't run in her shiny ballet flats if her life depended on it. "An art gallery-." Caitlyn shook her head, black curls spilling down around her face. She was pretty much the opposite of her sister. "The zoo-."

"Oh, yes!" Serena was bouncing up and down now at the prospect of animals. Caitlyn shrugged and everyone looked to Harry, who smiled.

"Sure."

"Alright, get your coats and we'll go."

* * *

Ms. Larkin was right; it was a very nice day. A lot of other families seemed to have the same idea, as the zoo was crowded. Ms. Larkin bought them ice creams at the entrance before she paid their admission fees. She only worked as a waitress but Serena said her grandparents on both sides had left them a sum of money. Harry had the feeling the waitressing job was more of a hobby than to earn money and found himself wondering frequently why they lived in the neighborhood they did as opposed to some place grander.

They walked around as a group for a while as they finished their ice creams, but then Ms. Larkin agreed to let Harry and Serena off on their own while she and Caitlyn went another way. She told them to meet up with her at the zoo restaurant in an hour for lunch and then Harry and Serena were free.

Harry let Serena drag him around the small animal exhibits and then into the petting zoo for a while before he brought her into the cool, dark reptile house to get out of the sun. Serena wasn't fond of snakes; it might have had something to do with their diets and her love for rodents.

Serena went to see the lizards while Harry looked around at the snakes. He stopped at a cage for a large python, which looked as though it might die of boredom. Harry could understand that. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's. It winked.

Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't; Serena was reading the information on the chameleon in the corner. Harry looked back at the snake and winked too.

"It must be really boring." Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. The snake nodded vigorously. "Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.

The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.

 _Boa Constrictor, Brazil._

"Was it nice there?" The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on:

 _This specimen was bred in the zoo._

"Oh, I see. So you've never been to Brazil?" As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump.

"Harry, what're you doing here?! What's that snake doing?" Dudley came waddling over as fast as he could and Harry frowned; he hadn't realized that the zoo would be Dudley's birthday destination or he never would've come. "Move, you." Dudley punched Harry in the ribs and, caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor.

What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened. One second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had fallen straight through as if there were no glass there at all. The two boys landed in the water of the cage with shrieks as the snake slithered out past them.

People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits. Harry sat up as gasped as the snake slithered towards him. Then a hand was on his arm, trying to tug him up. Serena looked to be in complete shock, but she stayed with him as he got himself to his feet again.

As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said:

"Brazil, here I come... Thanksss, amigo."

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.

"But the glass." He kept saying. "Where did the glass go?"

Vernon and Petunia ran over to the cage, but the glass had appeared once again. Petunia screamed and pounded on the glass as Dudley cried inside. Vernon started looking around for the culprit, but Serena and Harry were already rounding the corner of the exit and disappearing from his line of sight. They hurried a little way away from the reptile house to be sure and then ducked behind a bench to catch their breath.

"What happened?" Serena gasped, brown eyes wide and dark olive skin seeming to pale a bit.

"I dunno know." Harry admitted, just as surprised as she was. She stared at him for a long moment and then looked over the back of the bench.

"Come on. Let's find mum." She grabbed his hand and they hurried off again.


	3. Acceptance

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

 **A/N I have a Pinterest board for this story on my account (username is Veronica Wayland, board is called Legacy Fanfiction Storyboard) that has the start of my dreamcast and I put up new pins to alert followers to a new chapter. If you want to check it out, go ahead. If you don't, that's fine too. It's just something fun with some visuals for the story.**

* * *

 _July, 1991_

 _St. Wool's Orphanage, London_

Phoebe Black hurried down the streets of Muggle London. A black handbag tied to her belt, an excited gleam in her eye and a definite hop in her step... The eleven year old had had a good morning, but if the street lamps were turning off, it meant it was nearly time to get up at the orphanage and, as excited as she was, she knew her ruse of stuffing pillows under her blankets was sure to be ruined if anyone were to go in to check on her.

Lights out as the orphanage was at sun-down while the wake-up call usually happened right after sunrise. With that timeline, she could usually get a few hours of sleep and then some time to herself in the streets. If you knew where to look, which Phoebe did, you could usually find something of use. For instance, the bakery donated day old goods to the homeless shelter nearby. However, Phoebe had struck up a friendship with the owner and he would always hold back a small box of cookies or muffins for her. She could then take half for herself and trade the other half around the orphanage for other objects. Those Muggle objects, anything from a cigarette lighter one older boy had given her to a ballpoint pen, could be traded to one particular man in a small shop by a place called the Leaky Cauldron. He was a wizard, but he was fascinated with Muggle objects. She could trade him some Muggle things and he'd give her something from the wizard world in return. That morning, she'd traded an old rubiks cube for a small roll of Spellotape. When something exciting happened in the wizard world, the old wizard would even give her a newspaper to read all about it, no charge.

Eavesdropping, sneaking out, breaking all the rules and talking to strangers really had helped her. She truly wondered what rules were good for anymore, if not to break them to further advance yourself.

The orphanage wasn't exactly hard to spot, what with the grey walls and stench of sorrow, and she certainly knew her way around the area, dark or not. She tossed her dark hair over her shoulder, made sure her bag was still attached to her belt and started climbing. One foot on a windowsill, boost herself up to grab the top of the window. She pulled herself up, planted her feet on the top of the windowsill and continued on up the side of the building.

A pencil was placed in between the windowsill and her window, keeping it open just enough she could slip her fingers through and push it open. She slid inside, got tangled up in the curtains and tripped. She recovered quickly and straightened her back. Turning, she shut her window, tossed the pencil onto her desk and went to sit on her bed, covered with thin sheets and with her old stuffed dog keeping watch on the door.

Phoebe dug into her bag at her side; it had been spelled to be much larger on the inside than the outside. It had taken several pens, a flashlight, a book of matches and a handful of Muggle coins to get it from the old wizard, but it was well worth it. She kept everything she needed in a bag attached to her belt-loop.

She stuck her arm in, digging around for the box of cookies she had gotten earlier. Before she could find them, a knock on the door sounded and the knob started to turn. She threw herself down on her side and yanked the covers up over her, trying to pretend as though she was just waking up.

The door swung open and two people stepped in, Ms. Norman and a woman that Phoebe didn't recognize. She sat up, gave a fake yawn and kept the covers up to her waist so Ms. Norman couldn't see she was already in her jeans and boots.

"Phoebe, this is Professor McGonagall. She wants to talk to you about... something." Ms. Norman waved her hand and walked out, shutting the door behind her.

"Professor, huh? I think I can guess what this is about." Phoebe kicked the covers off her and stood up.

"This is for you." The older witch handed her an envelope.

She knew what it was before she even took it. There was the Hogwarts seal on it and, in perfect handwriting: _Ms. P. Black._ Hogwarts. He escape route from an orphanage where she was called a freak to a school where she'd be called evil. Phoebe wasn't stupid or completely cut off from the wizard world; she knew what the Black family name meant.

Right after her family had been murdered, she'd been sent to her nearest 'family' members. The Malfoy's; her cousins. They had made sure she knew exactly what the family name meant. The orphanage was actually a step up from them; making Lucius and Narcissa feel as if she was 'manipulating' their poor Draco into seeing her less racist views had been the best thing she'd never done.

Hogwarts was going to be just as bad, or worse. No doubt everyone would think of her as her father's daughter and nothing more. But she had to look at this in a way that would help her. She learned magic, she graduated, she got to use magic, she did what she wanted.

She looked up at Professor McGonagall again.

"Where do I sign up?"

* * *

 _Outside Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon, England_

The Lupin cottage was a small place, the second story was more of an attic than anything else and it was nearly overgrown with vines. It was out of the way and so far from the road that no one could see it. The most remarkable thing about the property, aside from the luscious meadows of flowers, was the tree-house that stood proud in the largest tree on the lot.

There was a trap door and a rope ladder. The walls were thick and sturdy, with windows on all sides and shutters in the place of actual glass. The inside had built in shelves and benches. It was something no eleven year old could build; it had been built primarily by Dorcas, Thomas's mother. Now he was the only one that entered it, but he kept it in tip-top shape... Mostly.

He called it The Lab and things tended to go awry in there, but aside from the occasional scorch mark (that was a bad day) and paint stain (things happen, no need to cry over spilled paint), it was mostly nice looking still.

On the sunny July morning, Thomas was preparing for another one of his experiments: Mento time bombs. He'd frozen the Mentos in ice cubes and now had a bucket of coca cola. He had to time everything... for science. And future reference.

He took a pair of tongs and dropped a few ice cubes in. Then another couple, just to be sure there would be a visible reaction. He started the stop-watch and then ducked behind his over-turned coffee table for cover.

His mother had always found something fun to do in The Lab. Whether it was staying up there all night telling scary stories or pretending to be stowaways on a ship during a storm. She'd never run out of ideas. While Thomas's fun was a little different now, he never ran out of ideas either. Just cleaning supplies and coca cola.

A few minutes passed as Thomas waited. He wondered if he should go over and throw a couple more ice cubes in, then decided it would affect the timing and results. So he twiddled his thumbs behind his cover and waited some more.

Outside his open window, he saw an unfamiliar owl swoop past with what looked like a letter in its beak. It was his Hogwarts letter. It had to be. Thomas stood up from behind his cover, intent to run down to get it.

That was when the time bombs went off. Violently.

A few minutes later, he came stumbling into the cottage. Remus Lupin looked up from the table where the letter sat and spotted Thomas, dripping and sticky, in the doorway. He opened his mouth to question it, but then just stopped, shook his head and walked away. Probably to consult his parenting books again...

Undeterred by his father's obvious disappointment in him, Thomas ran to the kitchen table, only slipping once, and grabbed his letter. It had the purple wax seal he'd imagined, with a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake around a large H. His heart leaped inside his sticky chest. He was going to Hogwarts.


	4. Brave New World

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

 **A/N If you're interested in what each character's wand symbolizes (Harry's is the same, the three OC's have wands I created specifically for them) then there is a page for wand wood symbolism and wand core meaning on Harry Potter Wikia. I spent more time than I care to admit choosing each wand wood for them.**

 **In any case, enjoy this chapter. We're that much closer to getting to Hogwarts and the real adventure starting. I hope you enjoy. Please review and tell me what you think of the story!**

* * *

Harry had never imagined such a wonderful place. Diagon Alley was full of people and strange shops and odd objects. It was hard to believe he was in this magical place just because of a letter. Hagrid led him through the streets and helped him get his school supplies. With only one nasty run in with a pale, blond boy, Harry was having a grand day.

It was right outside the Apothecary, trying to tell Hagrid he didn't need a birthday present from him, that he heard his name being called.

"Harry!" He and Hagrid both turned in surprise. Serena Larkin was standing a few yards away, curly hair straightened for the day and wearing a green pea coat and matching suede boots. As Harry caught her eye, Serena came running over. When she reached him, she threw her arms around him, trapping his arms against his sides as she hugged him.

"Serena, what are you doing here?" Harry asked in confusion. Could it be possible that his best friend was somehow a witch as well?

"Shopping for Hogwarts." She said as though it were obvious, finally detaching herself and pulling away to smile at him. "I wanted to tell you that we were both going but mum said that Dumbledore said we had to wait to tell you you were a wizard." She said it all in one breath, with the widest smile on her face Harry had ever seen. She looked like the Cheshire cat.

"'Ello there." Hagrid spoke up and Serena seemed to notice him for the first time, which was odd considering his size compared to her.

"This is Hagrid. He's helping me get all my stuff. Hagrid, this is my friend, Serena Larkin." Harry introduced them and their shook hands, though Serena's was completely swallowed by Hagrid's.

Ms. Larkin came hurrying over, pulling a tired looking Caitlyn by the hand.

"Serena! I turn my back for one moment and you're gone! Oh, Harry!" Harry did another round of introductions for Hagrid, Ms. Larkin and Caitlyn. As Ms. Larkin and Hagrid talked, Serena pulled Harry aside.

"Isn't shopping exciting? What do you have so far?" Hagrid was carrying Harry's cauldron, which in turn held all his supplies.

"Everything except my wand. Hagrid says he's going to get me an owl for a birthday present, even though I said-."

"Oh, Harry!" Serena gasped, her face the perfect picture of horror. "I forgot it's your birthday! We didn't celebrate together and I didn't get you anything!"

"It's fine-." Harry started, lest she think it was necessary to buy him an owl too, but Ms. Larkin interrupted them.

"Why don't you two go get your wands and Hagrid and I will get your birthday presents?" Harry opened his mouth to protest again but Ms. Larkin cut him off with instructions to the wand shop. She handed Serena some coins for her own wand and then she, Hagrid and Caitlyn hurried off.

"Come on." Serena was tugging on his hand, so he gave in and they started down the street in the opposite direction. "Isn't it great how we'll be going to Hogwarts together?" Serena tried to swing their arms but Harry kept his rigid. He was sure that Serena was ready to dance through flowered meadows with a singing unicorn herd, but he wasn't going to do it with her. Not only were they in public, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't a bit peeved that she hadn't told him about the magical world he belonged to. She seemed to sense this and her happiness waned; they walked in silence.

The shop that Ms. Larkin had directed them to was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.

A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, the only furniture being a small chair by the door. Harry felt strangely as though he had entered a very strict library; he swallowed a lot of new questions that had just occurred to him and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of his neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.

He glanced over at Serena and saw she was staring at the boxes in wonder too.

"Good afternoon." A soft voice said. Harry jumped and Serena let out a squeak like a frightened mouse.

An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop. His hair was pure white and sticking up in odd directions and his eyes seemed to see right into their souls. Harry realized he was still holding Serena's hand like a little kid. He dropped it quickly.

"Hello." Harry returned awkwardly. Serena raised a hand in greeting.

"Ah yes... Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It wasn't a question. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work." Mr. Ollivander moved closer to Harry. Harry wished he would blink. Those silvery eyes were a bit creepy. "Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it, it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course." Mr. Ollivander had come so close that he and Harry were almost nose to nose. Harry could see himself reflected in those misty eyes. He touched the lightning scar on Harry's forehead with a long, white finger. "And that's where... I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it. Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands... well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do..."

Harry didn't know what to say. Thankfully, Mr. Ollivander turned his attention to Serena instead, who was looking rather uncomfortable already.

"And you look like your parents as well. Peter Pettigrew. Nine and a quarter inches long, brittle, made of chestnut. And Tamara Larkin. Ten inches, pliable, made of beech." He recounted, looking Serena up and down. When he was done, he pulled a measuring tape out of his pocket. "Ladies first, Ms. Pettigrew. Which is your wand arm?"

"Uh... I'm right handed. And it's Larkin."

"Hold out your arm. That's it." He measured Serena from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and around her head. As he measured, he continued speaking to them. "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Ms. Pettigrew, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand." Harry suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between Serena's nostrils for whatever reason, was doing it all on its own. Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes. "That will do." He said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor.

Serena looked over her shoulder at Harry, who had retreated to the chair by the door in an attempt to stay out of the way. Harry shrugged at her, not sure what she wanted him to do about the odd situation they were in.

"Try this one. Eleven inches, alder wood, dragon heart-string." Mr. Ollivander handed it to Serena and instructed her to give it wave. She did. Nothing happened, but Mr. Ollivander snatched it back with a shake of his head. "No, no, that's not right."

Mr. Ollivander had her try several different wands before handing her a nine inch mahogany wand with unicorn hair. As soon as she touched it, blue and green sparks fell from the tip like a miniature waterfall and she smiled. Mr. Ollivander grinned and congratulated her. She paid for her wand and sat in Harry's vacated chair while he found his own wand.

Many wands were discarded on the floor as Mr. Ollivander kept giving him different wands to try. Harry was beginning to get nervous, as he had gone through many more wands than Serena had. What if he was some kind of dud and not meant to have a wand at all? But, finally, he was handed a wand and, as he flicked it, a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls.

"Well, well, well... how curious... how very curious..." Mr. Ollivander put Harry's wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering. "Curious... curious.."

"Sorry, but what's curious?" Harry asked. Mr. Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare.

"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather. Just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother, why, its brother gave you that scar." Harry swallowed audibly. "Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter... After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible, yes, but great." Harry shivered. He wasn't sure he liked Mr. Ollivander too much.

He paid seven gold Galleons for his wand and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop. On the street, Serena and Harry compared their wands. While Harry's had a noticeable handle on the bottom and was perfectly straight, Serena's was twisted like a piece of licorice and had no such handle. She said her wand was prettier than his but Harry was too busy thinking about what Mr. Ollivander had said to worry about it.

Thankfully, he was brought of his thoughts by the return of Ms. Larkin and Hagrid. Hagrid was carrying an owl cage, with a beautiful snowy owl asleep with her head tucked under her wing inside. Harry stammered his thanks over and over as he took the cage. Hagrid seemed very pleased but also very embarrassed.

Ms. Larkin had a book of wizard's stories for him as a birthday present and Caitlyn and Serena sang him Happy Birthday right there in the street. Serena because she thought it was nice and Caitlyn because she knew it would embarrass him.

The small, happy group left Mr. Ollivander's shop behind them as they went to go eat lunch together.

* * *

Muggle London and Diagon Alley were very different places, as Phoebe found out. Professor McGonagall had taken her shopping for all her school supplies and instructed her on the rules and expectations of Hogwarts until Phoebe thought her head was going to explode. But, despite the Professor's stern voice and disapproving frown, she had been nice to Phoebe and she found herself liking the Professor already.

The afternoon sun was sinking in the sky as they completed their extensive shopping. Professor McGonagall walked her down another street anyway and Phoebe glanced around at the shops out of curiosity.

She still had money in her pocket, but she fully intended on saving it. Who knew what she could get from the wizard down near the Leaky Cauldron with actual wizards money. And, now that she knew how to get into Diagon Alley, she could return to her bank vault any time she wanted. It wasn't technically hers; it was her mother's and grandparent's family vault. She should've gotten her father's vault and possessions too, since he was certainly never getting out of Azkaban, but he didn't _actually_ leave it to her in his will. And, to be technical, he wasn't actually dead yet. He was just dead to her. If she wanted his possessions, it would be a legal battle that an eleven-year-old with no legal guardian couldn't win.

"Is there anything else you want before I take you back?" Professor McGonagall questioned, sounding hesitant to do the actual 'taking back'. Phoebe looked up from her wand, an eleven inch ebony wand with dragon heart-string core.

"I got everything on my list." She shrugged. _And then some,_ she reminded herself. She hadn't been able to pass up getting some things from a candy shop. Considering everything that had been bought that day, her bag would've weighed a ton if it weren't for the magic that kept it light. Still, it made a clattering sound every time it swung on her belt.

"Then I guess we should be heading back." Professor McGonagall sighed, pursing her lips. Phoebe thought she had sensed pity with the Professor; she hated pity, especially when it was aimed towards her.

"Guess so." She kept her voice light and strode past the Professor towards the entrance to Muggle London as if it didn't bother her at all.

* * *

The day before the train left for Hogwarts, Thomas found himself pouring over his textbooks. He doubted he was going to be the most popular kid in school, so he was going to aim for the smartest. Besides, he wasn't going to get any practice wand-work in, so he might as well look ahead in his books. Remus had taken his wand away immediately after they'd gotten back from Diagon Alley; apparently he was afraid of what Thomas could do with it, considering what he could do without it. Until they left for Platform Nine and Three Quarters, the eleven inch spruce wand with unicorn hair would be locked up in a tall cabinet.

There was a knock on the door and Remus poked his head inside. He was looking tired and pale again. Thomas shut his book and gave his full attention to Remus.

"When you go to school tomorrow-."

"Don't tell anyone I'm part werewolf?" Thomas questioned.

"That _and..._ Try to make friends."

"I have friends. Three of 'em. Me, myself and I. We always agree, so it's great." Thomas joked, leaning back against his headboard.

"Thomas..." Remus pinched the bridge of his nose, the sign that Thomas was getting on his nerves. He pinched the bridge of his nose a lot, Thomas had noticed. "Just try. Friends make everything a little easier."

"Alright." He agreed, mostly to end the conversation. Remus nodded, smiled at him and left him to his books.

Thomas wondered if friends were actually worth it. They seemed like a lot of work and, given the choice, he'd rather be by himself than with a group. But, if it made his dad happy, he could at least work on it. Thomas sighed and kicked his books off his bed before curling up for the night. He'd have to scout out friends tomorrow on the train...


	5. History Repeating

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

 **A/N This is the first chapter in which all main characters will be together. I hope you enjoy. Please review and tell me what you think. Reviews mean a lot to me!**

* * *

 _September 1st_

Harry had seen some weird things in the last month. But the way to get onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters probably topped the list. He looked over at Ms. Larkin to see if she was joking, but she didn't have much of a sense of humor and he knew she was serious.

He pushed his trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.

He started to walk toward it. People jostled him on their way to platforms nine and ten. Harry walked faster. He was going to smash right into that barrier and then he'd be in trouble... Leaning forward on his cart, he broke into a heavy run. The barrier was coming nearer and nearer; he wouldn't be able to stop... The cart was out of control... He was a foot away. He closed his eyes ready for the crash. It didn't come... He kept on running... He opened his eyes.

A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven o'clock. Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. He had done it.

Serena came hurrying through, barely managing to stop her trolley before it hit his. It was close enough that Monet had started squeaking and running for the back of his cage. They both looked around in wonder.

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.

Ms. Larkin and Caitlyn came through the barrier, with Caitlyn flinching like she expected it to suddenly not work after Serena and Harry had gone through. Ms. Larkin, looking flustered since they had arrived later than expected, fixed her hair and motioned towards the train.

"Let's find you tow a spot to put your trunks."

The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. They passed a round-faced boy and caught a snippet of their conversation:

"Gran, I've lost my toad again."

"Oh, Neville."

Further down the platform, a boy with dreadlocks was surrounded by a small crowd.

"Give us a look, Lee, go on." The boy lifted the lid of a box in his arms, and the people around him shrieked and yelled as something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.

Harry pressed on through the crowd until he found an empty compartment near the end of the train. He put Hedwig inside first and then started to shove and heave his trunk toward the train door. With Ms. Larkin's help, Harry's trunk was at last tucked away in a corner of the compartment. They did the same with Serena's and then stopped to catch their breaths.

They said their goodbyes and Ms. Larkin made Caitlyn hug Serena before they left. Everyone was hurrying to board the train, since they only had minutes until the train started moving toward Hogwarts. With one last round of hugs that embarrassed, and pleased, Harry, Ms. Larkin ushered the two onto the train.

The train started to move as Serena and Harry took their seats. They watched the platform disappear from view as the train rounded the corner and instead houses flashed past the window. Harry felt a great leap of excitement. He didn't know what he was going to but it had to be better than what he was leaving behind.

The door to the compartment slid open to reveal a black haired, grey eyed girl. She was dressed in ripped jeans and a tattered black hoodie, hair pulled back into a high ponytail. Something about the way she carried herself made her seem older, though Harry knew she couldn't be any older than Serena and himself.

"Do you mind if I sit in here?" She looked between the two of them, who both nodded.

"Please." Serena waved her in and the girl slipped inside and shut the door again behind her. She sat down cross-legged on the same row of seat as Harry, though not exactly _next_ to him. "I'm Serena Larkin. This is Harry Potter."

"Harry Potter? As in the Boy Who Lived?" The girl asked, looking in between the two. Harry shifted in his seat uncomfortably and Serena seemed unable to form another word, looking worried that the girl might start bombarding Harry with questions he didn't know how to answer. "Good. Maybe I won't be the center of attention." She added with a scoff, settling back in the corner of the seat.

"Why would you be?" Harry asked.

"Phoebe Black. As in the daughter of a mass murderer."

"Oh." Harry said, unsure of what else there was to say.

"Oh." Serena echoed, though there was something off about her voice.

"Yeah. Oh." Phoebe agreed with a humorless laugh.

"So what do you know about Hogwarts?" Serena changed the subject and everyone was glad. The talk turned to the school and soon the trio was laughing instead.

It was when the train was speeding past fields full of cows and sheep that the door to the compartment slid open again. This time, a sandy-haired boy in an over-sized sweater stood there.

"Mind if I join you guys? The last compartment was full of idiots." He offered as explanation. They invited in him and he collapsed in the seat next to Serena. He introduced himself as Thomas Lupin and another round of introductions was offered. When Phoebe introduced herself, first and last name, Thomas looked at her for a long moment and then said: "Mate, that's messed up for you." No empathy, just a comment.

"Thanks." Phoebe told him, barely containing a laugh.

The talk again turned to other subjects, with Phoebe and Thomas managing to crack everyone up with their own brands of dry humor and witty sarcasm. They talked about everything from quidditch to school to the weird things they now knew was accidental magic happening when they were younger. Thomas's mother had been a muggle-born and he knew about both worlds, as did Phoebe for different reasons. The four of them had plenty to talk about, magical and otherwise.

Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door.

"Anything off the cart, dears?"

Harry jumped up, his pockets rattling with money from his parent's vault. Phoebe followed him out into the corridor while Thomas muttered something about not being hungry and Serena merely stayed put without a word.

He was ready to buy as many Mars Bars as he could carry, but the woman didn't have Mars Bars. What she did have were Bettie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, chocolate frogs, pumpkin pasties, cauldron cakes, licorice wands and a number of other strange things Harry had never seen in his life. Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything and paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.

Harry dumped the load onto the seat, with Phoebe sitting on the floor to make room with her own handful of candy, which she passed out to Thomas and Serena. Both looked hesitant to take any but she gave them a look and then obliged.

"Go on, have some." Harry encouraged, motioning to his stack. He'd never had anything to share with friends before and it was a nice feeling to sit around with the other three, eating their way through the pile.

Phoebe and Thomas challenged each other with Every Flavor Beans. Harry joined in at first, but wasn't brave enough to just blindly taste all of them like they were and came to the conclusion that both of his new friends were either incredibly brave or incredibly dumb.

Serena drew the line at the chocolate frogs. She didn't fancy eating anything that had once moved or was still currently moving. Harry, feeling brave, opened a box.

The frog hopped onto the window and then jumped out. Serena let out a cry of surprise and held Monet closer to her chest.

"Oh, that's too bad. They only have one good jump in them." Thomas said and popped another bean in his mouth before promptly gagging and having to clench his jaw shut before swallowing hard. Once he had done that, he continued above the sound of Phoebe's laugh: "Even better the second time... Anyway, it's the cards that you want. They're collectible. You can trade them."

"You can trade them?" Phoebe perked up, tossing a small handful of every flavor beans into her mouth without a care in the world. The girl had an amazingly non-existent gag reflex, or perhaps just no working taste buds at all.

Harry pulled out his card and flipped it over. It showed a man's face. He wore half- moon glasses, had a long, crooked nose, and flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache. Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore.

"So this is Dumbledore!" He read the information on the other side.

 _ALBUS DUMBLEDORE_

 _CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS_

 _Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling._

Harry turned the card back over and saw, to his astonishment, that Dumbledore's face had disappeared.

"He's gone!"

"They do that." Thomas said nonchalantly.

The compartment door slid open again. This time, three boys entered. There was a pale, blond boy and two larger goons by his side.

"Is it true? They're saying all down the train that people are catching glimpses of Harry Potter. So it's you, is it?"

"Yes." Harry replied. He was looking at the other boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards.

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle." The boy said carelessly, noticing where Harry was looking. "And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." He glanced around the compartment at the others, finally looking down at Phoebe, who was still sitting on the floor. She jumped to her feet, sending the candy wrappers on her lap flying across the floor.

"Draco." She said it in a way that made Harry think she knew him. Draco's confident smile faded slightly, but then he merely pushed her aside and stuck out his hand to Harry. Phoebe looked as though he had slapped her. Thomas stood, looking between Phoebe and Draco like he was wondering if he should get involved.

"You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."

"I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks." Draco Malfoy didn't go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks.

"I'd be careful if I were you, Potter." He said slowly. "Unless you're a bit politer you'll go the same way as your parents. They didn't know what was good for them, either."

"Hey!" Serena was on her feet in defense of her best friend immediately, setting Monet down on the seat and trying to make her small self look bigger.

"Say that again." Thomas encouraged. "Go on." His tone was humorous, like it was all in good fun, but his expression said something entirely different. Draco just sneered.

"Oh, you're going to fight us, are you?"

"Unless you get out now." Harry said, more bravely than he felt, because Crabbe and Goyle were a lot bigger than any of them.

"But we don't feel like leaving, do we, boys? We've eaten all our food and you still seem to have some."

Goyle reached toward the pile Chocolate Frogs. Harry leaped forward, but before he'd so much as touched Goyle, Goyle let out a horrible yell. Monet the rat had leaped up onto the other row of seats and had reached Goyle before Harry; he hung from Goyle's finger by his teeth. Crabbe and Malfoy backed away as Goyle swung Monet round and round, howling, and when Monet finally flew off and hit the window, all three of them disappeared at once.

"Monet!" Serena picked him up, cradling him in her hands like a baby.

"Is it dead?" Phoebe questioned.

"No!" Serena snapped.

"It looks dead." Thomas put in.

"He's not dead! He's... He's asleep." Serena looked surprised herself, but then gently laid him back down in his cage and everyone sat down again.

"I've heard of the Malfoy family." Thomas put in as the shock of the moment passed. "They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side. Knew him school, he did. The Malfoy's have always been Slytherins."

"Well, people aren't their fathers." Serena put in, shooting a none-too-subtle look at Phoebe. Harry looked between them, trying to figure out what was happening, but Phoebe just smiled and nodded gratefully to Serena.

They relapsed back into silence until it became uncomfortable and Serena spoke up again:

"Well. That was exciting. We've gotten into a fight before we've even gotten to school."

"Technically, he fought." Harry pointed at Monet, sleeping sounding in his cage.

"Are you sure he's not dead?" Phoebe questioned.

"He's fine!"

"He looks dead." Thomas added.

"He does not!"

"Well..." Harry began.

"He's fine." Serena frowned, then reached over to put her fingers on his stomach to feel for breathing. "Yeah, he's fine."


	6. A Place Of Belonging

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

 **A/N This is the longest chapter so far, so I hope you enjoy. If anyone has any comments, constructive criticism, question or anything else, please feel free to review or PM me!**

* * *

As the sun started to set and an echoing voice informed them they would soon be reaching the school, they all began to get a little nervous, yet each tried to hide it. When the train crawled to a stop, people pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Harry shivered in the cold, his thick Hogwarts robes doing little to keep him warm.

Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a familiar voice:

"Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?" Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads. "C'mon, follow me. Any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. The boy who had lost his toad at the platform seemed to still be missing him, because he sniffed once or twice and his hands were empty.

"Ye' all get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec." Hagrid called over his shoulder. "Jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud 'oh' of awe. The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black take. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry, Serena, Thomas and Phoebe quickly sandwiched themselves into one of the boats. Hagrid had one boat all to himself "Everyone in? Right then. FORWARD!"And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass.

Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood. Serena, who was sitting next to Harry, turned to smile at him, but he was in too much awe to return the gesture.

"Heads down!" Hagrid warned as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

It was still dark, except for Hagrid's lamp. Thomas dipped his hands in the cold water and then grabbed Phoebe from behind in an attempt to scare her. Harry heard more than he saw the crunch of a fist against a nose. He and Serena quickly turned around and pretended not to know them as Hagrid yelled out a warning about fighting.

"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" Hagrid asked after a few moments of checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

"Trevor!" The boy cried blissfully, holding out his hands to accept the toad.

Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle. They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.

"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?" Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Harry's first thought was that this was not someone to cross. Then she winked at Phoebe, who waved slightly in return, and Harry thought maybe she wasn't all that bad.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall." Hagrid announced.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here." She pulled the door wide and led the first years inside.

The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursleys' house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors. They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Harry could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right, but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

"Welcome to Hogwarts." Professor McGonagall started. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room. The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours. The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting." Her eyes lingered for a moment on Thomas's bloody nose and one boy's cloak that was fastened under his ear. Harry nervously tried to smooth down his hair. "I shall return when we are ready for you. Please wait quietly." She left the chamber.

Harry swallowed hard.

"How exactly do they sort us into houses?" He asked Thomas, who seemed to know the most about the wizarding world.

"Some sort of test, I think." Thomas answered distractedly, his voice distorted because of his injured nose. Harry's heart gave a horrible jolt. A test? In front of the whole school? But he didn't know any magic yet. What on earth would he have to do? He hadn't expected something like this the moment they arrived.

He looked around anxiously and saw that everyone else looked terrified, too. No one was talking much except one bushy haired girl, who was whispering very fast about all the spells she'd learned and wondering which one she'd need. Harry tried hard not to listen to her.

He'd never been more nervous, never, not even when he'd had to take a school report home to the Dursleys saying that he'd somehow turned his teacher's wig blue. He kept his eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, Professor McGonagall would come back and lead him to his doom. Then something happened that made him jump about a foot in the air. Several people behind him screamed.

About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying:

"Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance-."

"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost... I say, what are you all doing here?" A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years. Nobody answered.

"New students!" The Fat Friar cried, smiling around at them. "About to be Sorted, I suppose?" A few people nodded mutely. "Hope to see you in Hufflepuff! My old house, you know."

"Move along now. The Sorting Ceremony's about to start." Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall. "Now, form a line and follow me." Professor McGonagall instructed.

Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Harry got into line behind a boy Phoebe with Serena behind him and they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first years up there, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. It looked real, though logic told him a ceiling should be there...

Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let it in the house. Maybe they had to try and get a rabbit out of it, Harry thought wildly. Noticing that everyone in the hall was now staring at the hat, he stared at it, too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth and the hat began to sing:

"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty. But don't judge on what you see, I'll eat myself if you can find a smarter hat than me. You can keep your bowlers black, your top hats sleek and tall, for I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat and I can cap them all. There's nothing hidden in your head The Sorting Hat can't see, so try me on and I will tell you where you ought to be. You might belong in Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart, their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart. You might belong in Hufflepuff, where they are just and loyal, those patient Hufflepuffs are true and unafraid of toil. Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, if you've a ready mind, where those of wit and learning, will always find their kind. Or perhaps in Slytherin you'll make your real friends, those cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends. So put me on! Don't be afraid! And don't get in a flap! You're in safe hands, though I have none. For I'm a Thinking Cap!"The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

"What the bloody... What did I just witness?" Phoebe demanded in shock. Even Thomas was squinting past his swollen nose in confusion.

Harry smiled weakly. Yes, trying on the hat was a lot better than having to do a spell, but he did wish they could have tried it on without everyone watching. The hat seemed to be asking rather a lot; Harry didn't feel brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the hat had mentioned a house for people who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted. Abbott, Hannah!"

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moments pause...

"HUFFLEPUFF!" The hat shouted. The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down. Harry saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

"Black, Phoebe." A hush came over the Great Hall as Phoebe strode up to the stool and plunked herself down, shoving the hat on her head, with perhaps a bit more force than necessary.

 _Ah, a Black. Never thought I'd see another one of those..._ She heard in her mind, as clearly as someone talking into her ear.

 _Just sort me and let me leave._ Phoebe thought back.

 _You're quite cunning, quite ambitious. You'd do anything to advance yourself..._ Phoebe knew where the Sorting Hat was going with that.

 _Not Slytherin. I'd prefer not to be compared to my father every day of my life. How about Ravenclaw? That's the smart house, right?_

 _You do have a good mind, a nice drive for learning..._

 _Ravenclaw it is! Hooray! House pride and all that jazz. You wanna announce Ravenclaw now?_

 _But you're also brave. Determined. A nice heart on you as well..._ The hat continued and Phoebe had the sinking feeling she was going to be there all night.

 _Make up your non-existent mind, please._ Phoebe urged.

 _How rude of you. I have quite the mind. However, I'm going to go with..._

"GRYFFINDOR!" The hat shouted to the entire hall. Phoebe felt McGonagall take the hat off her head for her as she had an unintelligent moment consisting of choking on her own spit. As she recovered, she stood and hurried to sit down at the Gryffindor table.

People clapped and cheered for her as she sat down. A pair of red-haired twins catcalled her and she showed them a hand gesture no one needed to know sign language to understand. The twins howled with laughter and she turned her attention back to the sorting.

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" The hat shouted again and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!""The table second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.

'Brocklehurst, Mandy' went to Ravenclaw too, but 'Brown, Lavender' was another Gryffindor. 'Bulstrode, Millicent' then became a Slytherin. Perhaps it was Harry's imagination, after all he'd heard about Slytherin, but he thought they looked like an unpleasant lot.

"Granger, Hermione!"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

When Neville Longbottom, the boy who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville.

"GRYFFINDOR!" Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to McGonagall as she called up Lupin, Thomas.

 _There's a good brain on you, lot's of wit and creativity. A smart individual, you are._

 _Just don't put me with the stuck-up Ravenclaws._ Thomas moaned internally.

 _You're not overly modest yourself, young one. Very ambitious... Bold. Brave._

 _Gryffindor, huh? I think you mean I should be in Gryffindor._ Thomas tried to convince him.

 _Yes, you'll do fine there. It'll be..._

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Thomas pumped his fist in the air and danced off to Gryffindor table as all the students choked with laughter. Professor McGonagall had been pursing her lips very tightly since Phoebe's public hand gesture and, with the dancing, seemed to be counting in her head to calm herself.

Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed:

"SLYTHERIN!" Malfoy went to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking pleased with himself.

There weren't many people left now. 'Moon', 'Nott', 'Parkinson, then a pair of twin girls 'Patil' and 'Patil', then 'Perks, Sally-Anne' and then:

"Pettigrew, Serena."

"Larkin." Serena mumbled under her breath but hurried over to the stool. As soon as it was on her head, it began talking to her.

 _Loyal, hard-working, dedicated... You certainly would do well in Hufflepuff._

 _Then why haven't you sent me there yet?_ Serena questioned.

 _I'm searching..._

 _For what?_ She was almost afraid to ask.

 _What drives you._ It answered simply.

 _Uh... Family, I guess? I like art and stuff, but I wouldn't say it drives me. I like animals. Is this what you're looking for. I don't know what to tell you._

 _You're dedicated. You'd do well in Hufflepuff, yes..._

 _Then why haven't you sent me there yet?_ Serena repeated.

 _I'm deciding._

 _Do I get a choice?_ She asked hesitantly. Wasn't this supposed to be the hat's decision? Yet he talked to her, so that must mean her opinion mattered, at least somewhat.

 _My dear, this is all about choices!_

 _Put me in Gryffindor. I know that Harry will be there too and Phoebe and Thomas are already there... I can be a good Gryffindor, I promise._ Serena couldn't believe she was trying to convince an old, ratty hat of something. She hadn't expected that to be her first challenge at Hogwarts; her mother could have warned her about it.

 _I believe you..._

"GRYFFINDOR!" She handed the hat back to McGonagall and hurried to take her place beside Thomas and Phoebe.

"You were almost a hat-stall." Someone said.

"A what?"

"If the hat takes more than five minutes to decide, it's a hat-stall." Someone else explained. She wondered how long she truly had been up there; it had all seemed to take seconds for her, but she had been fairly caught up in her own world.

"Potter, Harry."

As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

"Potter, did she say?"

"The Harry Potter?" The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. The next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.

 _Hhmm,_ a voice hummed in Harry's ear, _difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, my goodness, yes... and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting... So where shall I put you?_

Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought: _Not Slytherin, not Slytherin._

 _Not Slytherin, eh?_ The small voice said. _Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that... no? Well, if you're sure... better be..._

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. He took off the hat and walked shakily toward the Gryffindor table. He was so relieved to have been chosen and not put in Slytherin, he hardly noticed that he was getting the loudest cheer yet. Serena hugged him while Thomas did a whoop like a war cry and Phoebe gave him a thumbs up.

Harry could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest him sat the giant, Hagrid, who caught his eye and gave him the thumbs up. Harry grinned back; the giant was large, but he seemed friendly enough. And there, in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore. Harry recognized him at once from the card he'd gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. Dumbledore's silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. Harry spotted Professor Quirell, too, the nervous young man that he and Hagrid had met in the Leaky Cauldron. He was looking very peculiar in a large purple turban.

There were only three people left to be sorted, all of which were sorted quickly. Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.

Harry looked down at his empty gold plate. He had only just realized how hungry he was. The pumpkin pasties seemed ages ago. Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

"Welcome." He said, his voice loud enough to carry across the entire hall. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!" He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not.

"Is he a bit mad?" He asked uncertainly, not directly the question at anyone in particular.

"Probably." There was a hint of admiration in Thomas's voice.

"Look, Harry." Serena whispered in awe.

Harry's mouth fell open as he looked down at the table. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs. Harry piled his plate with a bit of everything except the peppermints and began to eat. It was all delicious.

"That does look good." The ghost in the ruff said sadly, watching Harry cut up his steak,

"Can't you-?"

"I haven't eaten for nearly four hundred years. I don't need to, of course, but one does miss it. I don't think I've introduced myself? Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington at your service. Resident ghost of Gryffindor Tower."

"I know who you are!" A boy said suddenly. "My brothers told me about you. You're Nearly Headless Nick!"

"I would prefer you to call me Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-." The ghost began stiffly, but sandy-haired Seamus Finnigan interrupted:

"Nearly Headless? How can you be nearly headless?"

Sir Nicholas looked extremely miffed, as if their little chat wasn't going at all the way he wanted.

"Like this." He said irritably. He seized his left ear and pulled. His whole head swung off his neck and fell onto his shoulder as if it was on a hinge. Someone had obviously tried to behead him, but not done it properly. Looking pleased at the stunned looks on their faces, Nearly Headless Nick flipped his head back onto his neck, coughed, and said: "So, new Gryffindors! I hope you're going to help us win the house championship this year? Gryffindors have never gone so long without winning. Slytherins have got the cup six years in a row! The Bloody Baron's becoming almost unbearable. He's the Slytherin ghost."

Harry looked over at the Slytherin table and saw a horrible ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. He was right next to Draco Malfoy who, Harry was pleased to see, didn't look too pleased with the seating arrangements.

"How did he get covered in blood?" Phoebe asked with unusually great interest.

"I've never asked." Nearly Headless Nick said delicately.

When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding...

As Harry helped himself to a treacle tart, the talk turned to their families.

"I'm half-and-half." Seamus said. "Me dad's a Muggle. Mom didn't tell him she was a witch 'til after they were married. Bit of a nasty shock for him when he found out." The others laughed.

"What about you, Neville?" Thomas asked, pointing his fork at the boy.

"Well, my gran brought me up and she's a witch." Neville said. "But the family thought I was all-Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me. He pushed me off the end of Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned. But nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced. All the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here. They thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad."

"I'd ask for a refund." Phoebe teased with a smile.

Harry, who was starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin. It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell's turban straight into Harry's eyes and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry's forehead.

"Ouch!" Harry clapped a hand to his head.

"Harry, what's the matter?" Serena asked worriedly.

"N-nothing." The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling Harry had gotten from the teacher's look, a feeling that he didn't like Harry at all. "Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?" He wondered aloud.

Serena hesitantly nudged a boy that looked to be a sibling of the twins that had catcalled Phoebe and repeated the question.

"Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? No wonder he's looking so nervous, that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to. Everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape."

Harry watched Snape for a while, but Snape didn't look at him again. At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent.

"Ahem. Just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the twins. "I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch. And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."

"Cheerful." Phoebe muttered, half asleep at the table.

"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" Dumbledore cried. Harry noticed that the other teachers' smiles had become rather fixed. Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words. "Everyone pick their favorite tune and off we go!"

And the school bellowed:

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts, teach us something please, whether we be old and bald or young with scabby knees, our heads could do with filling with some interesting stuff, for now they're bare and full of air, dead flies and bits of fluff, so teach us things worth knowing. Bring back what we've forgot, just do your best, we'll do the rest and learn until our brains all rot."

Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the twins and a snickering Phoebe were left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.

"Ah, music." He said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"

The Gryffindor first years followed their Prefect through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase. Harry's legs were like lead again, but only because he was so tired and full of food. He was too sleepy even to be surprised that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that twice they were led through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries. They climbed more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet, and Harry was just wondering how much farther they had to go when they came to a sudden halt.

A bundle of walking sticks was floating in midair ahead of them and as Percy the Prefect took a step toward them they started throwing themselves at him.

"Peeves." The Prefect whispered to the first years. "A poltergeist." He raised his voice: "Peeves, show yourself"A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered. "Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?" There was a pop and a little man with wicked, dark eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks.

"Oooooooh!" He said, with an evil cackle. "Ickle Firsties! What fun!" He swooped suddenly at them. They all ducked.

"Go away, Peeves, or the Baron'll hear about this, I mean it!" Percy barked. Peeves stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the walking sticks on Neville's head. They heard him zooming away, rattling coats of armor as he passed. "You want to watch out for Peeves. The Bloody Baron's the only one who can control him; he won't even listen to us prefects. Here we are."

At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.

"Password?" She said.

"Caput Draconis." Percy said and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it, though a few needed a leg or a hand up, and found themselves in the Gryffindor common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs.

Percy directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a spiral staircase, as they were obviously in one of the towers, the girls found their beds at last: five four-posters hung with deep red, velvet curtains. Phoebe and Serena found themselves sharing a room with Hermione Granger, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil while Harry and Thomas found themselves in a room with Neville Longbottom. Seamus, Dean and Ron Weasley had another room to themselves

That night, the four new friends fell asleep easily, with their excitement and joy of what the next day would bring threatening to bubble over.


	7. The Starting Point

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

 **A/N This chapter doesn't really change anything that happened in the books, but the story didn't flow right without it, so here it is. I'll be uploading another chapter right after this to make up for it.**

 **Also (not important but I thought I'd mention it) I re-uploaded the first chapter with a minor change. I realized I'd stated Thomas as having black hair, yet two chapters later he has brown/blond hair (as I always intended). I don't know why I was thinking black hair for him in the first chapter, but the mistake is now fixed. If anyone notices any other mistakes, feel free to let me know so that I can correct them as soon as possible. If you have any other comments or questions about where the story is going or about the OC, please don't hesitate to review or PM me!**

* * *

Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring. Harry wished they wouldn't, because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk.

The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Nearly Headless Nick was always happy to point new Gryffindors in the right direction, but Peeves the Poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech:

"GOT YOUR CONK!"

Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Argus Filch. Harry and Phoebe managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first morning. Filch found them trying to force their way through a door that unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn't believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose, and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Quirrell, who was passing.

Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamp like eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone, except perhaps the Weasley twins, and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.

And then, once you had managed to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as Harry quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.

They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets.

Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.

Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and got Emetic the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry's name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.

Professor McGonagall was again different. Harry had been quite right to think she wasn't a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts." She warned. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned." Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time.

After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only Hermione Granger had made any difference to her match; Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave Hermione a rare smile.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story. For one thing, when Seamus Finnigan asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban and the Weasley twins insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went.

Harry was very relieved to find out that he wasn't miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like him, hadn't had any idea that they were witches and wizards. There was so much to learn that even people like Thomas didn't have much of a head start.

Friday was an important day for Harry and Thomas. They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once. They joined the girls at the Gryffindor table with sighs of relief.

"What have we got today?" Harry asked Serena as he poured sugar on his porridge. Serena always kept their class list with her, so she'd become their go-to person to ask.

"Double Potions with the Slytherins." She reported without even looking at her paper, buttering her toast.

"Professor Snape is the head of Slytherin house. Everyone says he favors them." Thomas put in.

"Wish McGonagall favored us." Phoebe muttered. Professor McGonagall was head of Gryffindor House, but it hadn't stopped her from giving them a huge pile of homework the day before.

Just then, the mail arrived. Harry had gotten used to this by now, but it had given him a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners and dropping letters and packages onto their laps.

Hedwig hadn't brought Harry anything so far. She sometimes flew in to nibble his ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery with the other school owls. That morning, however, she fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and dropped a note onto Harry's plate.

Harry tore it open at once. It said, in a very untidy scrawl:

 _Dear Harry,_

 _I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three? I want to hear all about your first week._

 _Send an answer back with Hedwig._

 _Hagrid_

Harry borrowed Serena's quill and scribbled 'yes, please, see you later' on the back of the note and sent Hedwig back.

It was lucky that Harry had tea with Hagrid to look forward to, because the Potions lesson turned out to be the worst thing that had happened to him so far. At the start-of-term banquet, Harry had gotten the idea that Professor Snape disliked him. By the end of the first Potions lesson, he knew he'd been wrong. Snape didn't dislike Harry: he hated him.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder there than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Snape, like Flitwick, started the class by taking the roll call, and like Flitwick, he paused at Harry's name.

"Ah, yes." He said softly. "Harry Potter. Our new... celebrity." Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle sniggered behind their hands.

Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black like Hagrid's, but they had none of Hagrid's warmth. They were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels. Or, as Phoebe said later, a toilet bowl in a dark bathroom.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking." He began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word. Like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death... if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

More silence followed this little speech. Harry and Serena, who were partners, exchanged looks with raised eyebrows. At the table beside them, Thomas was looking eager to prove he wasn't a dunderhead and Phoebe was looking at her cauldron like she was debating whether or not to stick her head inside.

"Potter!" Snape said suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Powdered root of what to an infusion of what? Harry glanced at Serena, who looked as stumped as he was.

"I don't know, sir." Harry admitted. Snape's lips curled into a sneer.

"Tut, tut. Fame clearly isn't everything. Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Harry didn't have the faintest idea what a bezoar was. He tried not to look at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who were shaking with laughter.

"I don't know, sir."

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" Harry forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes. He had looked through his books at the Dursleys', but did Snape expect him to remember everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?

"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

At this, Thomas raised his hand.

"I don't know." Harry said quietly. "I think Thomas does, though, why don't you try him?" A few people laughed; Harry caught Phoebe's eye and Phoebe winked. Snape, however, was not pleased.

"Lower your hand." He snapped at Thomas. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?" There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said: "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter."

Things didn't improve for the Gryffindors as the Potions lesson continued. Snape set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to like. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

"Idiot boy!" Snape snarled, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?" Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose. "Take him up to the hospital wing." Snape spat at Seamus.

Then he rounded on Harry and Serena, who had been working next to Neville and Seamus. "You, Potter, why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor." This was so unfair that Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Serena kicked him behind their cauldron and shook her head at him.

As they climbed the steps out of the dungeon an hour later, Harry's mind was racing and his spirits were low. He'd lost two points for Gryffindor in his very first week. Why did Snape hate him so much?

"He takes points off Fred and George all the time." Phoebe tried to cheer him up. She would know; she had become fast friends with the older twins. She even trusted them enough to agree to let them levitate her out a window so she could duck tape a ruler to the top of Gryffindor tower. The goods news: Gryffindor tower was now taller than Ravenclaw tower. The bad news: the twins and Phoebe still had to write 'I will not endanger myself or other students' at least fifty more times.

"Let's go down and visit Hagrid." Serena added and Harry agreed, cheering up a bit.

At five to three they left the castle and made their way across the grounds. Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door. When Harry knocked they heard a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Hagrid's voice rang out, saying:

"Back, Fang, back." Hagrid's big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open. "Hang on. Back, Fang." He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.

There was only one room inside the hut. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire and in the corner stood a massive bed with a large patchwork quilt over it.

"Make yerselves at home." Hagrid told them, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Thomas and started licking his ears. Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.

"This is Phoebe and Thomas." Harry told Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.

The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth, but the group pretended to be enjoying them as they told Hagrid all about their first lessons. Fang rested his head on Harry's knee and drooled all over his robes. They were all delighted to hear Hagrid call Fitch 'that old git'.

"An' as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I'd like ter introduce her to Fang sometime. D'yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere? Can't get rid of her. Fitch puts her up to it."

Harry told Hagrid about Snape's lesson. Hagrid, like Harry's friends, told Harry not to worry about it, that Snape liked hardly any of the students.

"But he seemed to really hate me."

"Rubbish! Why should he?" Yet Harry couldn't help thinking that Hagrid didn't quite meet his eyes when he said that. "How yer mum, doin'?" He asked Serena. Harry wondered if Hagrid had changed the subject on purpose.

Harry picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cozy. It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet:

 _GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST_

 _Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown. Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day._

" _But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you." said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon._

"Hagrid! That Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!" There was no doubt about it, Hagrid definitely didn't meet Harry's eyes this time. He grunted and offered him another rock cake.

Harry read the story again. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day. Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?

As Harry, Phoebe, Thomas and Serena walked back to the castle for dinner, their pockets weighed down with rock cakes they'd been too polite to refuse, Harry thought that none of the lessons he'd had so far had given him as much to think about as tea with Hagrid. Had Hagrid collected that package just in time? Where was it now? And did Hagrid know something about Snape that he didn't want to tell Harry?


	8. Learning To Fly

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

* * *

Slytherins were the bullies of the school. It didn't take long for any of the first years to figure that out. Still, first-year Gryffindors only had Potions with the Slytherins, so they didn't have to put up with Malfoy much. Or at least, they didn't until they spotted a notice pinned up in the Gryffindor common room that made them all groan. Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday... and Gryffindor and Slytherin would be learning together.

"Typical." Harry said darkly. "Just what I always wanted. To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy." He had been looking forward to learning to fly more than anything else.

"You don't know that you'll make a fool of yourself. And if you fall off your broom, I'll fall off too, in support. Unless we're too high up. Then I'll groan sympathetically." Thomas assured him, but that didn't make him feel any better.

Malfoy talked about flying a lot. He complained loudly about first years never getting on the house Quidditch teams and told long, boastful stories that always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters. He wasn't the only one, though: the way Seamus Finnigan told it, he'd spent most of his childhood zooming around the countryside on his broomstick. Everyone from wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly.

Neville had never been on a broomstick in his life, because his grandmother had never let him near one. Privately, Harry felt she'd had good reason, because Neville managed to have an extraordinary number of accidents even with both feet on the ground.

One day, a barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother. He opened it excitedly and showed them a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seemed to be full of white smoke.

"It's a Remembrall!" He explained. "Gran knows I forget things. This tells you if there's something you've forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red... oh..." His face fell, because the Remembrall had suddenly glowed scarlet: "You've forgotten something..."

Neville was trying to remember what he'd forgotten when Draco Malfoy, who was passing the Gryffindor table, snatched the Remembrall out of his hand. Harry and Phoebe jumped to their feet. Harry was half hoping for a reason to fight Malfoy and knew Phoebe would more than back him up against the boy, but Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble quicker than any teacher in the school, was there in a flash.

"What's going on?"

"Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor." Scowling, Malfoy quickly dropped the Remembrall back on the table.

"Just looking." He said and he sloped away with Crabbe and Goyle behind him.

* * *

At three-thirty that afternoon, the first year Gryffindors hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.

The Slytherins were already there and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground.

"He always slicks his hair back." Phoebe noted casually.

"So?" Serena was too busy trying to contain her hair in a braid to really pay attention to what Pheobe was saying.

"I have a lighter." She retrieved it from her bag to prove her point and smiled ominously. "It would be a shame if a flame came too close to a head covered in so much hair spray and gel..."

"Okay, inside voice there, honey." Thomas told her, though he didn't sound totally against the idea.

Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" She barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up." Harry glanced down at his broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom." Madam Hooch called at the front. "And say 'Up'!""

"UP!" Everyone shouted. Harry's broom jumped into his hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Serena's had simply rolled over on the ground and Neville's hadn't moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell when you were afraid, thought Harry; there was a quaver in Neville's voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground.

Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Harry was delighted when she told Malfoy he'd been doing it wrong for years.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard." Madam Hooch instructed. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle... three... two..."

But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips.

"Come back, boy!" She shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle... twelve feet... twenty feet. Harry saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and... WHAM! A thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay face-down on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight.

Phoebe and Serena ran over, reaching him at the same time as Madam Hooch, but she brushed them away. She bent over Neville, her face as white as his.

"Broken wrist." She muttered. "Come on, boy. It's all right. Up you get." She turned to the rest of the class. "None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear." Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.

No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter.

"Did you see his face, the great lump?" The other Slytherins joined in.

"Shut up, Draco." Phoebe snarled.

"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom? Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, Black." Phoebe started forward, a murderous look in her eye, but Serena leapt forward, caught her arms and pulled her back.

"Look!" Malfoy said, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him." The Remembrall glittered in the sun as he held it up.

"Give that here, Malfoy." Harry said quietly. Everyone stopped talking to watch, even Phoebe stared at him. Malfoy smiled nastily.

"I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find... how about... up a tree?"

"Give it here!" Harry yelled, but Malfoy had leapt onto his broomstick and taken off. He hadn't been lying, he could fly well. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak he called:

"Come and get it, Potter!" Harry grabbed his broom.

"Harry, don't! You don't even know how to fly!" Serena shouted.

He ignored her. Blood was pounding in his ears. He mounted the broom and kicked hard against the ground and up, up he soared; air rushed through his hair, and his robes whipped out behind him... and in a rush of fierce joy he realized he'd found something he could do without being taught. This was easy, this was wonderful. He pulled his broomstick up a little to take it even higher and heard screams and gasps from girls back on the ground and an admiring whoop from Thomas.

He turned his broomstick sharply to face Malfoy in midair. Malfoy looked stunned.

"Give it here." Harry called. "Or I'll knock you off that broom!"

"Oh, yeah?" Malfoy said, trying to sneer, but looking worried. Harry knew, somehow, what to do. He leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Malfay like a javelin. Malfoy only just got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp about-face and held the broom steady. A few people below were clapping.

"No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your neck, Malfoy." Harry called. The same thought seemed to have struck Malfoy.

"Catch it if you can, then!" He shouted and he threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground.

Harry saw, as though in slow motion, the ball rise up in the air and then start to fall. He leaned forward and pointed his broom handle down... next second he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball... wind whistled in his ears, mingled with the screams of people watching. He stretched out his hand... A foot from the ground he caught it, just in time to pull his broom straight and he toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in his fist.

"HARRY POTTER!" His heart sank faster than he'd just dived. Professor McGonagall was running toward them. He got to his feet, trembling. "Never... in all my time at Hogwarts..." Professor McGonagall was almost speechless with shock, and her glasses flashed furiously. "How dare you... might have broken your neck..."

"But-."

"Not a word, Miss Pettigrew."

"It wasn't his fault, Professor-."

"Be quiet, Mr. Lupin."

"But that punk-."

"That's enough, Miss Black. Potter, follow me, now."

As Harry walked away with Professor McGonagall, Phoebe turned on Draco like a rabid dog. Before Serena could even grab her again, she was on top of Draco, pinning him to the ground, fist raised. Crabbe and Goyle rushed to try and grab her, but Thomas ran to intercept them.

"Stop, stop!" Serena tried to get in between the three of them, but was promptly shoved aside and onto the grass. "They'll kill each other!" Serena cried, her curls falling into her face. Her concern went unheard by the rest of the students; they were forming a ring around the five first-years, chanting 'fight, fight, fight'. Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas made their way into the ring, each jumping to fight Crabbe and Goyle with Thomas while Phoebe mercilessly beat Draco.

Mid-swing, Draco grabbed her by the wrists and threw her off him. He scrambled to his feet, blood dripping from his nose and split lip. Crabbe had Seamus in a wrestlers hold, while Thomas and Seamus hung off his neck in a desperate attempt to pull him down.

Goyle, however, was up. As Phoebe got to her feet, his fist connected with her face and she went down again. The chanting stopped; no one wanted to see Goyle beat up an eleven year old girl.

"Goyle, don't. The little blood traitor's just like her father." Malfoy snapped as he shook blood off his hand. Like a trained attack dog, Goyle backed down.

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!" Madam Hooch was back and the ring quickly dispersed. Thomas, now lying on the ground where he'd been thrown off Crabbe, rolled over to look at Phoebe, blinking and moaning.

"Did we win...?"

* * *

The Hogwarts nurse, Madam Pomfrey, wasn't pleased when three first-years were sent to her due to a old fashioned fist fight.

"Honestly, where is the discipline these days?" She gave them all wet washcloths and ice for their faces and made sure Malfoy was sitting as far away from Phoebe and Thomas as possible to prevent a rematch.

As she bustled around on the other side of the room, still mumbling under her breath, Thomas went to sit next to Phoebe. She was sitting on the edge of a bed, absentmindedly holding an ice pack against her jaw. She didn't notice him sit next to her until he bumped his shoulder against hers. She jumped a little and gave him a forced smile.

"You okay?" She asked.

"Bloody brilliant. Emphasis on bloody." Phoebe didn't laugh like he'd expected. In fact, she looked rather upset. "You?"

"I've gotten into fights before. This is nothing." She tossed the ice pack onto the bed and he saw a bruise blossoming on the right side of her face. She was silent for a minute, like she was debating saying something else. He waited patiently, pretending to busy himself with trying to find a clean spot of the washcloth to press against his nose.

After a long moment, she turned and folded her legs underneath her, facing him.

"You know who my father is. Do you think I'm like him?"

"A murderous psychopath?" He clarified. She looked away, shifting again uncomfortably. "Nah. I mean, you're insane. But it's the good kind that I can relate to." He assured her. She smiled at him and it didn't look forced anymore.

"Thanks." She threw her arms around him in a hug. He awkwardly patted her head in return. Sensing he wasn't the hugging type, she pulled back and reached for her ice pack again. "Here." She handed it to him and he put it to his mouth.

"Thanks."

"Anytime. I've never had anyone to back me up in a fight before."

"What are friends for?" She grinned, as if he'd said exactly the right thing.

The doors to the hospital wing burst open and Harry and Serena came running over to them. They both started talking all at once.

"I got on the Quidditch team!"

"You look like roadkill."

"Firstly, Serena, we look like battle weary first-years. Not roadkill." Thomas corrected. He turned calmly to Harry. "Secondly: what?" His mock calm was gone and in it's place was shock and excitement.

"You are not, Potter." Malfoy came up to them, sneering through a bloody nose. Crabbe and Goyle flanked him once more.

"Yes, I am! McGonagall put me on herself." Harry bragged, looking very pleased with himself.

"Well, my father will hear about this!"

"Yes, yes, run to daddy, crybaby." Phoebe snarled.

"You're a lot braver now that you're back on the ground and you've got your little friends with you." Harry said coolly.

"I'd take you on anytime on my own. Tonight, if you want. Wizard's duel. Wands only. No contact." Phoebe snickered at the rule. "What's the matter? Never heard of a wizard's duel before, I suppose?"

"Of course he has." Thomas put in hotly as Serena made frantic signs for him to shut up. "I'm his second, who's yours?" Malfoy looked at Crabbe and Goyle, sizing them up.

"Crabbe." He said. "Midnight all right? We'll meet you in the trophy room; that's always unlocked." He and his goons strode away.

When Malfoy had gone, Thomas and Harry looked at each other, their stupidity dawning on them at the same time.

"What is a wizard's duel? And what do you mean, you're my second?"

"It means if you die, I take over." Thomas didn't seem seem happy about this, even though he'd been the one to say it.

"What?" Serena shrieked. Madam Pomfrey looked over and they all put on their best innocent faces until she looked away again.

"Oh, please, all you'll be able to do is send sparks at each other." Phoebe put in.

"And what if I wave my wand and nothing happens?" Harry thought she was the best friend to go to for fighting advice, despite the fact half her face was currently turning purple.

"Throw it away and punch him in the throat. Throat, knees, right between the legs. It'll take him down." Phoebe instructed.

"What if he tries to curse me?"

"You say that like he's intelligent." Phoebe scoffed and said nothing more.

"We should go to a teacher about this." Serena put in.

"No. We should go with Harry. Four against three." Phoebe said and everyone stared at her. "What? You think they'll fight fair? With all of us there, the odds are better. Let's gang up on those twerps, hogtie 'em and then we're gonna get some really hot hot sauce and-."

"Whoa, stop right there." Serena warned, holding up her hands. "I do _not_ want to hear how your version of events ends."

"Spoiler alert: with girlish screams." Phoebe was looking very pleased with herself.

"Oh my gosh." Serena looked away from her, as if completely overwhelmed by her friends insanity.

"We'll do the duel his way." Harry put in.

"He probably thought you'd refuse anyway." Thomas put in.

"Exactly." Harry tried to sound confident; Serena's look of pity told him he had failed.

"Well." Phoebe said, standing up. "Anyone who wants to witness pretty sparks and bad smack-talk should meet in the common room at eleven-thirty. I'll bring the hot sauce."

"Phoebe, _no_!"


	9. An Awfully Big Adventure

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

* * *

Harry thought, as he sat near the heater in his dormitory, there was a very good chance they were going to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris. Harry felt he was pushing his luck, breaking another school rule today. On the other hand, Malfoys sneering face kept looming up out of the darkness. This was his big chance to beat Malfoy face-to-face. He couldn't miss it.

He looked at his watch and saw it was eleven-thirty. He stood up, slipped on his bathrobe and shoes and went to wake Thomas. It took several hard shakes and saying 'bacon' before the other boy woke up with a start and drool on his lip.

"Half-past eleven." Harry informed him. "We'd better go."

Thomas jumped into action, grabbing his own shoes and robe. They picked up their wands and, since they didn't have to worry about Neville with him still in the hospital wing, ran across the room and down the staircase into the common room. A few embers were still glowing in the fireplace and they saw the shadows of the girls waiting. Serena was wearing her pink satin pajamas and bunny slippers, hair wild and a frown on her face. Phoebe had gotten red lipstick from someone and used it like warpaint, the only color on her due to her choice of a black nightgown and black combat boots. Serena was holding a bottle of hot sauce she'd obviously taken from Phoebe and she put it on a table as they walked across the common room.

Harry pushed open the portrait and the four of them scrambled through. The hallway outside was dark and very cold. Before they got very far from the portrait hole, they heard some a sort of shuffling sound in front of them.

"What was that?" Serena asked in fear.

"Mrs. Norris, probably." Harry whispered back.

The four of them crept forward, flinching whenever one of them stepped too loudly. Harry kept his wand out, unsure of what spell he'd even try on the cat. But it wasn't Mrs. Norris. It was Neville. He was curled up on the floor, fast asleep, but jerked suddenly awake as they crept nearer.

"Thank goodness you found me! I've been out here for hours, I couldn't remember the new password to get in to bed."

"Keep your voice down, Neville. We're trying to sneak around. And the password's 'Pig snout'." Thomas informed him.

"I don't think that will help." Serena whispered from behind them. They turned around and followed her line of sight to the portrait. It appeared that The Fat Lady had gone on a nighttime visit and they were locked out of Gryffindor tower.

"It's just a portrait. Here, help me." Phoebe nudged Thomas for emphasis on who she meant and the two of them went over, trying to pull the portrait back on its hinges. It was sealed tight. Phoebe huffed and pulled something out of her boat. At first Harry thought it was her wand, but it was actually a butterfly knife. Harry decided not to question why she'd brought a knife with her to meet Malfoy for a no-contact duel.

"What are you-?" Harry started but his question was answered when Phoebe stabbed the knife in between the portrait and the wall.

"There... has to be... a lock...somewhere." She mused, wriggling her knife up and down.

"It's a magic portrait, not a regular door." Thomas felt obligated to point out.

"We're gonna get expelled." Neville moaned.

"Only if we get caught." Phoebe assured him. "Come on. You're coming with us."

They flitted along corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows. At every turn Harry expected to run into Filch or Mrs. Norris, but they were lucky. They sped up a staircase to the third floor and tiptoed toward the trophy room.

Malfoy and Crabbe weren't there yet. The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them. Cups, shields, plates, and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. They edged along the walls, keeping their eyes on the doors at either end of the room. Harry took out his wand in case Malfoy leapt in and started at once. The minutes crept by and they started to grow bored.

Phoebe twirled her pocket knife around until Serena got twitchy about it and she put it away with a huff. Neville moaned a bit until Thomas distracted him with a supposedly hilarious story about how a garden gnome snuck into his family's house once.

Then a noise in the next room made them jump. Harry had only just raised his wand when they heard someone speak. And it wasn't Malfoy.

"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner." It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris. Horror-struck, Harry waved madly at the others to follow him as quickly as possible; they scurried silently toward the door, away from Filch's voice. Neville's robes had barely whipped round the corner when they heard Filch enter the trophy room.

"They're in here somewhere." They heard him mutter. "Probably hiding."

"This way!" Harry whispered to the others and, petrified, they began to creep down a long gallery full of suits of armor. They could hear Filch getting nearer. Neville suddenly let out a frightened squeak and broke into a run. He tripped, grabbed Harry around the waist, and the pair of them toppled right into a suit of armor. The clanging and crashing were enough to wake the whole castle.

"RUN!" Harry yelled, all stealth thrown out the proverbial window, and the five of them sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see whether or not Filch was following. They swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor then another, Harry in the lead, without any idea where they were or where they were going. They ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passageway, hurtled along it and came out near their Charms classroom, which they knew was miles from the trophy room.

"I think we've lost him." Harry panted, leaning against the cold wall and wiping his forehead. Neville was bent double, wheezing and spluttering.

"Not...with...subtly... mind you..." Thomas panted.

"We've got to get back to Gryffindor tower as quickly as possible." Serena put in, straightening up and smoothing out her pajamas.

"Malfoy set us up!" Phoebe snarled. "That little ferret is gonna find his head in the toilet tomorrow morning!" Harry nodded in agreement to the first part of that, feeling very, very stupid. At least he wasn't any stupider than the other four who had followed him there.

"Let's go."

It wasn't going to be that simple. They hadn't gone more than a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and something came hooting out of a classroom in front of them. It was Peeves. He caught sight of them and gave a squeal of delight.

"Shut up, Peeves, please, you'll get us thrown out." Harry begged. Peeves cackled.

"Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty."

"Not if you shut up!" Phoebe told him threateningly.

"Can you hit a ghost?" Thomas whispered to her.

"I'm willing to find out."

"Should tell Filch, I should." Peeves continued in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. "It's for your own good, you know."

"Get out of the way, man." Thomas snapped, taking a swipe at Peeves. That was a big mistake.

"STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" Peeves bellowed. "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!" Ducking under Peeves, they ran for their lives, right to the end of the corridor where they slammed into a door... and it was locked.

"This is it!" Neville moaned, as they pushed helplessly at the door. "We're done for! This is the end!" They could hear footsteps, Filch running as fast as he could toward Peeves's shouts.

"Move!" Phoebe shoved them aside and thrust her knife into the space between the door and the doorframe. "Honestly. Wizards can't even unlock a door without knowing a special spell and having a wand and all this and that." She grumbled. The lock clicked and Phoebe straightened up.

"You're a genius."

"You're insane."

"I respond to both, come on!" Phoebe pushed open the door and they all piled into the room, shut the door again and pressed their ears to it, listening.

"Which way did they go, Peeves?" Filch was saying. "Quick, tell me."

"Say 'please'."

"Don't mess with me, Peeves, now where did they go?"

"Shan't say nothing if you don't say please." Peeves said in his annoying singsong voice.

"All right: please."

"NOTHING! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa!" And they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage.

"He thinks this door is locked." Harry whispered. "I think we'll be okay. Get off, Neville!" Neville had been tugging on the sleeve of Harry's bathrobe for the last minute. "What?" Harry turned around and saw, quite clearly, what.

For a moment, he was sure he'd walked into a nightmare. This was too much, on top of everything that had happened so far. They weren't in a room, as he had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden. They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs. It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Harry knew that the only reason they weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant. Harry groped for the doorknob. Between Filch and death, he'd take Filch.

They fell backward. Harry slammed the door shut, and they ran, they almost flew, back down the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, because they didn't see him anywhere, but they hardly cared. All they wanted to do was put as much space as possible between them and that monster. They didn't stop running until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady on the seventh floor.

"Where on earth have you all been?" She asked, looking at their bathrobes hanging off their shoulders, their messy hair and their flushed, sweaty faces.

"Never mind that. Pig snout, pig snout." Harry panted and the portrait swung forward. They scrambled into the common room and collapsed, trembling, into armchairs. It was a while before any of them said anything. Neville, indeed, looked as if he'd never speak again.

"What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" Phoebe demanded.

"What are they thinking keeping a thing like that anywhere?" Thomas shot right back.

"Did you see what it was standing on?" Serena asked suddenly. She seemed oddly calm. Then again, no animals scared her. Not even three headed dogs, it seemed.

"The floor?" Harry suggested. "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads."

"Well, I was trying not to look at its heads. It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something."

"Maybe it was a bunch of three-headed puppies, I dunno know!" Phoebe snapped.

"I think it takes two three-headed dogs to make a litter of three-headed puppies." Thomas told her.

"Oh, shut it."

"Let's just go to bed." Serena suggested. Everyone else nodded in agreement.

As the boys snuck back into their room, Harry had something else to think about as he climbed back into bed. The dog was guarding something... What had Hagrid said? Gringotts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide, except perhaps Hogwarts. The vault in Gringotts had been emptied... and he think he knew where the contents went.


	10. Trolling Around

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

 **A/N** **Nanettez pointed out that I had called Thomas 'Sebastian' a few times in the last couple chapters. That was his original name before I changed it to Thomas at the last minute. I'd thought I'd gotten rid of all the times he's referred to as 'Sebastian' before posting the pre-written chapters, but obviously I didn't. Sorry for the confusion, but the embarrassing mistake is corrected now. If there is any other mistake, please let me know so I can correct it as soon as possible. If there's any questions or comments, please review or PM me as well. Thank you for the reviews I've gotten so far and please keep the feedback coming!**

* * *

Malfoy couldn't believe his eyes when he saw that the four friends were still at Hogwarts the next day, looking tired but perfectly cheerful. Thomas, Phoebe and Harry thought that meeting the three-headed dog had been an excellent adventure and they were quite keen to have another one. Serena was more concerned about the treatment of the poor three-headed dog and Neville wanted to forget any of it happened.

Harry filled his friends in about the package that seemed to have been moved from Gringotts to Hogwarts and they spent a lot of time wondering what could possibly need such heavy protection.

"It's either really valuable or really dangerous." Phoebe had a dangerous glint in her eye as she spoke.

"Or both." Harry put in. But, as all they knew for sure about the mysterious object was that it was about two inches long, they didn't have much chance of guessing what it was without further clues.

All they really wanted now was a way of getting back at Malfoy. Phoebe wanted to feed him to the three-headed dog, but that sounded too vicious. Thomas and Harry wanted to shove his head in a toilet, but they could never find him alone and didn't want to risk Crabbe and Goyle turning their plan around on them. Serena wanted them to forget about revenge. They didn't listen to Serena.

To their great delight, just such a thing arrived in the mail about a week later. As the owls flooded into the Great Hall as usual, everyone's attention was caught at once by a long, thin package carried by six large screech owls. Harry was just as interested as everyone else to see what was in this large parcel, and was amazed when the owls soared down and dropped it right in front of him, knocking his bacon to the floor. They had hardly fluttered out of the way when another owl dropped a letter on top of the parcel.

Harry ripped open the letter first, which was lucky, because it said:

 _DO NOT OPEN THE PARCEL AT THE TABLE._

 _It contains your new Nimbus Two Thousand, but I don't want everybody knowing you've got a broomstick or they'll all want one. Oliver Wood will meet you tonight on the Quidditch field at seven o'clock for your first training session._

 _Professor McGonagall_

Harry had difficulty hiding his glee as he handed the note to Serena to read. They all left the hall quickly, wanting to unwrap the broomstick in private before their first class, but halfway across the entrance hall they found the way upstairs barred by Crabbe and Goyle. Malfoy seized the package from Harry and felt it.

"That's a broomstick." He said, throwing it back to Harry with a mixture of jealousy and spite on his face. "You'll be in for it this time, Potter, first years aren't allowed them."

"Well, Harry is favored over you." Phoebe told him. Before he could answer, Professor Flitwick appeared at Malfoy's elbow.

"Not arguing, I hope?" He squeaked. Every teacher, apparently, had heard about the fist-fight and Phoebe and Malfoy could hardly be in the same room without a teacher swooping in to stand in between them.

"Not at all, Professor." Serena said it with such innocence that Professor Flitwick smiled and started to walk away.

"Potter's been sent a broomstick, Professor." Malfoy said quickly.

"Yes, yes, that's right." Professor Flitwick said, beaming at Harry. "Professor McGonagall told me all about the special circumstances, Potter. And what model is it?"

"A Nimbus Two Thousand, sir." Harry replied, fighting not to laugh at the look of horror on Malfoy's face. "And it's really thanks to Malfoy here that I've got it." He added. The group headed upstairs, smothering their laughter at Malfoy's obvious rage and confusion.

"Well, it's true." Harry chortled as they reached the top of the marble staircase. "If he hadn't stolen Neville's Remembrall I wouldn't be on the team..."

"See, breaking the rules is fun!" Phoebe said with a giggle.

"Lunatic." Serena accused, with a fond tone.

The group stopped in the common room and dumped the package on the nearest sofa. Harry began to unwrap it, tearing off the paper in a near frenzy while Serena scolded him for not being more careful and was quickly hushed by the others for her trouble.

"Whoa." Thomas gasped as they saw the broom. Even Harry, who knew nothing about the different brooms, thought it looked wonderful. Sleek and shiny, with a mahogany handle, it had a long tail of neat, straight twigs and Nimbus Two Thousand written in gold near the top. Phoebe grinned as she reached out to touch the tail.

"Now that is one bloody heck of a reward for breaking the rules."

* * *

Potions was never enjoyable. But as Halloween came around, Professor Snape seemed to be in an even worse mood than usual. He was harder on everyone, but it seemed to be Harry, Serena, Thomas and Phoebe that got the brunt of it. On Halloween day, Snape chose Phoebe to mercilessly bully during class.

"At least your father actually applied himself!" He snapped towards the end of class. As they filed out of the classroom, Harry caught a glimpse at Phoebe and saw she was actually crying. Too shocked to do anything, and not sure what to do in the first place, he tugged Serena's sleeve and motioned to Phoebe as the girl hurried away.

"Thomas!" Serena caught his attention as he muttered something about time bombs and Professor Snape's goblet under his breath. He seemed to know what was going on immediately and the group hurried after Phoebe.

She disappeared into the girl's bathroom and Serena wasted no time going in after her while the boys stopped short, unsure of what to do. The girl's bathroom was a no-go zone, but Phoebe was obviously upset. Harry looked hopelessly at Thomas, who just shrugged. They waited outside.

A few moments later, Serena came out.

"She is _officially_ not talking to us." The way Serena said it told them that Phoebe hadn't left any room for arguments. She huffed and tossed her hair. "We should report Professor Snape to... _someone!_ He can't talk to students like that. He knew this would set her off." She fumed, madder than Harry had ever seen her.

"Here, move." Thomas shuffled past them into the bathroom. They could hear arguing from inside, but couldn't make out the words. Finally, Thomas returned, shaking his head in defeat. "She's not leaving." He announced.

"We can wait for her." Harry suggested hopelessly, knowing she wouldn't leave until she was good and ready to. They had more classes and then dinner; they couldn't wait for her all day.

"Just go!" Phoebe said from the other side of the door, sniffling a little.

"Come on, let's give her a while." Serena suggested quietly. She tugged on Thomas's arm and the three of them left.

* * *

Phoebe didn't appear for her next class and, in fact, wasn't seen all afternoon. On their way down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast, Thomas decided to go try and talk to her again. Serena and Harry offered to help but Thomas thought it'd be better if he went alone, so they let him.

As they stepped into the Great Hall, the decorations momentarily distracted them from their worries. A thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins stutter.

The feast appeared suddenly on the golden plates, as it had at the start-of-term banquet.

Harry was just helping himself to a baked potato when Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. Everyone stared as he reached Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumped against the table, and gasped:

"Troll... in the dungeons... thought you ought to know." He then sank to the floor in a dead faint.

There was an uproar, everyone jumping up and screaming at once. It took several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore's wand to bring silence.

"Prefects!" He rumbled. "Lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!"

Percy was in his element.

"Follow me! Stick together, first years! No need to fear the troll if you follow my orders! Stay close behind me, now. Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me, I'm a prefect!"

"How could a troll get in?" Serena asked, blood draining from her face, as they climbed the stairs towards Gryffindor tower.

"How should I know?" Harry asked. They passed different groups of people hurrying in different directions. As they jostled their way through a crowd of confused Hufflepuffs, Serena stopped suddenly, grabbing wildly at Harry's arm.

"What about Thomas and Phoebe? They don't know about the troll!" She whispered. She swallowed audibly and fought to keep her expression calm. "We're going to alert Percy, who will go tell a teacher-."

"You do that." Harry encouraged. Yanking himself free from her grip, Harry ran away, leaving her fuming and unsure of what to do. Ducking down, Harry joined the Hufflepuffs going the other way, slipped down a deserted side corridor and hurried off toward the girls' bathroom. Harry had just turned the corner when they heard quick footsteps behind them. Thinking it was Percy, Harry ducked behind a stone griffon to hide. Peering around it, however, Harry saw not Percy but Snape. He crossed the corridor and disappeared from view.

Quietly as possible, Harry crept along the next corridor after Snape's fading footsteps. He was heading for the third floor. Suddenly, a foul stench reached his nostrils, a mixture of old socks and the kind of public toilet no one seems to clean. And then he heard it: a low grunting, and the shuffling footfalls of gigantic feet.

Harry turned towards where the sounds seemed to becoming from. At the end of a passage to the left, something huge was moving toward them. Harry shrank into the shadows and watched as it emerged into a patch of moonlight. It was a horrible sight. Twelve feet tall, its skin was a dull, granite gray, its great lumpy body like a boulder with its small bald head perched on top like a coconut. It had short legs thick as tree trunks with flat, horny feet. The smell coming from it was incredible. It was holding a huge wooden club, which dragged along the floor because its arms were so long.

The troll stopped next to a doorway and peered inside. It waggled its long ears, making up its tiny mind, then slouched slowly into the room.

The key was in the lock. Mouth dry, praying the troll wasn't about to come out, Harry crept forward. With one great leap, Harry managed to grab the key, slam the door, and lock it. He let out an excited 'yes!' and ran back down the corridor.

Rounding the corner, he collided with Serena and they hit the floor. She moaned and raised her head, holding her hair out of her eyes with one hand.

"What are you doing? Where's Thomas and Phoebe?"

"I trapped the troll!" Harry told her excitedly.

"Where?" She asked and Harry tried not to be peeved that she neglected to say 'good job' or 'you're a hero, Harry'.

"There." He pointed at the door. Serena's eyes followed his finger.

"That's the girls bathroom." As if to back Serena's statement up, they heard something that made their hearts stop: high, petrified screams... and it was coming from the chamber Harry had just locked up.

* * *

"You know, Snape is just a bully. He didn't get enough hugs as a kid or something and now he's bitter." Thomas talked on and on outside the stall door, trying anything and everything to get his friend to come out. He turned to face the door again. "Can I just come in?" He heard Phoebe undo the latch and the door opened a crack.

Phoebe scooted over the toilet lid and Thomas sat down next to her, their shoulders pressed against each other and the opposite sides of the stall. Neither of them spoke; Phoebe sniffed occasionally but Thomas made no comment about it. He glanced around as if the stall was interesting.

"Nice place you got here." Phoebe laughed at that and then they fell into a slightly happier silence.

That silence made sure that they heard the grunting and heavy footsteps. They looked at each other in confusion and then stood up on the toilet lid in unison, looking over the wall of the stall. A giant, lumbering troll walked into the bathroom. The door shut behind it and locked with a click.

"Yes!" They heard an all too familiar voice shout.

"Did that just happen?" Thomas whispered in shock, a slightly bitter tone in his voice. Harry was going to pay for that one... The troll turned towards them.

"Duck!" Phoebe cried and they dropped down and hit the floor together.

They'd barely hit the ground before the tops of the stalls came collapsing in on them, boards falling on top of them with bruising force. Thomas and Phoebe screamed together, both screams coming out higher pitched than they'd like and in _almost_ comical unison. The troll was advancing towards them as they started kicking and throwing boards at it and trying to crawl away at the same time.

A board hit the troll in the back of the head; Harry and Serena were arming themselves with debris by the door, both pale and shaky but determined.

"Move!" Harry ordered Thomas and Phoebe and they were quick to obey, army-crawling their way across the debris covered floor.

The troll was lumbering around, unsure of where to go and who to swing at. Its mean little eyes saw Harry. It hesitated, then made for him instead, lifting its club as it went.

"Harry!" Serena shoved him one way and ran another as Thomas picked up a metal tap and tossed it with surprising accuracy at the troll's head.

"Hey, over here, you garbage can!"

"No, over here, you-." Phoebe said something that would've gotten her detention for a month if she'd said it in front of a teacher. She picked up a piece of porcelain and threw it overhead with both hands. It bounced off the troll's shoulder and narrowly missed Serena, who shrieked at the close call.

"Come on!" Harry threw a board at it, hoping they could all keep it distracted and prevent it from going towards anyone in particular. Long term? He had no clue what they were going to do.

"No, I am Spartacus!" Thomas shouted and threw another piece of debris. Serena called him the same name Phoebe had called the troll for trying to be funny in their dire situation and Harry thought for a moment they were going to start fighting each other.

The shouting and the echoes of debris bouncing off the walls seemed to be driving the troll berserk. It roared again and started toward Serena, who was nearest and had no way to escape.

Harry then did something that was both very brave and very stupid: he took a great running jump and managed to fasten his arms around the troll's neck from behind. The troll couldn't feel Harry hanging there, but even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Harry's wand had still been in his hand when he'd jumped. It had gone straight up one of the troll's nostrils. Howling with pain, the troll twisted and flailed its club, with Harry clinging on for dear life; any second, the troll was going to rip him off or catch him a terrible blow with the club.

Phoebe and Thomas were trapped by the far wall, having to duck each time the club came their way. Serena shakily drew her wand and shouted the first spell that popped into her head. Green sparks shot out of her wand as the troll spun around in an attempt to get Harry off him. The sparks seemed to drive the troll into a frenzy and he started running around. Phoebe and Thomas curled up in the fetal position to avoid it and it came running towards them. It hit the wall face first, its feet narrowly missing Thomas and Phoebe.

The troll swayed on the spot and then fell backwards, with Harry leaping to safety at the last second. It landed with a thud that made the whole room tremble. Harry got to his feet. He was shaking and out of breath. Serena was standing there with her wand still raised, staring at what she had done.

It was Phoebe who spoke first.

"Please say its dead." For once, her viciousness wasn't out of place.

"I don't think so." Harry responded. "I think it's just been knocked out." He bent down and pulled his wand out of the troll's nose. It was covered in what looked like lumpy gray glue. "Ugh... troll boogers." He wiped it on the troll's trousers as Serena dove to a toilet to heave.

Thomas wrinkled his nose and started gagging as well. He turned to Phoebe.

"Cup your hands." She jumped out of the way and then, as an afterthought, shoved him none-too-gently towards a toilet instead.

A sudden slamming and loud footsteps made the five of them look up. They hadn't realized what a racket they had been making, but of course, someone downstairs must have heard the crashes and the troll's roars. Professor McGonagall came bursting into the room, closely followed by Snape, with Quirrell bringing up the rear. Quirrell took one look at the troll, let out a faint whimper, and sat quickly down on a toilet, clutching his heart.

Snape bent over the troll. Professor McGonagall was looking at the group. Harry had never seen her look so angry. Her lips were white.

"What on earth were you thinking of?" Professor McGonagall asked, with cold fury in her voice.

Harry looked at Serena, the one who usually could stay calm. She just turned and heaved into a toilet again. Thomas straightened up from his own toilet and tried to smile reassuring at their teacher but it came out more like a grimace. Harry and Phoebe looked at each other but neither found the courage to say anything.

"You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?" McGonagall demanded. Snape gave Harry a swift, piercing look. Harry looked at the floor.

"It's my fault, Professor."

"Miss Black!" McGonagall seemed to notice Phoebe for the first time.

"They were looking for me. If they hadn't found me, I'd probably be dead. They didn't have time to come and fetch anyone. It was about to finish me off when they arrived."

"What were you doing in here during dinner?"

"Bad day. Thomas was here trying to get me to come eat." Phoebe explained uncomfortably, shifting from one foot to another.

"Well... You are all very good friends to each other." McGonagall cleared her throat, as if that reminded her of something awful. "Now, everyone is finishing the feast in their common rooms. Five points to all of you. For _sheer dumb_ luck. Off you go." McGonagall waved them away and they were all too eager to run away back towards Gryffindor tower.

As they neared the portrait hole, Phoebe stopped to throw her arms around Harry in a hug. Awkwardly he patted her back. Serena was breathing heavily and laughing like a crazy person. Thomas dropped to his knees. They all looked at him as he threw his arms in the air.

"We are the supreme lords of the bathroom!" He yelled. That was not a title Harry wanted to be known for, but he laughed anyway.

"Yes, we are!" Phoebe agreed in the same loud yell. Serena shook her head, but laughed slightly less hysterically. Phoebe slapped her best friend some high-fives as he finally got up off his knees. Serena pressed a kiss to Harry's cheek and then started bouncing around with the other two, like rabbits hyped up on energy drinks. Harry just laughed at the sight of his insane friends.

Finally, they shouted the password and hurried through the portrait hole, content with the knowledge that they had another adventure under their belt.


	11. Let The Games Begin

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

* * *

As they entered November, the weather turned very cold. The mountains around the school became icy gray and the lake looked like chilled steel. Every morning the ground was covered in frost. Hagrid could be seen from the upstairs windows defrosting broomsticks on the Quidditch field, bundled up in a long moleskin overcoat, rabbit fur gloves, and enormous beaverskin boots. The Quidditch season had finally begun.

On Saturday, Harry would be playing in his first match after weeks of training: Gryffindor versus Slytherin. If Gryffindor won, they would move up into second place in the house championship. Hardly anyone had seen Harry play because Wood had decided that, as their secret weapon, Harry should be kept, well, secret. But the news that he was playing Seeker had leaked out somehow and Harry didn't know which was worse: people telling him he'd be brilliant or people telling him they'd be running around underneath him holding a mattress.

Serena found him the perfect book from the library to study: Quidditch Through The Ages. Harry learned that there were seven hundred ways of committing a Quidditch foul and that all of them had happened during a World Cup match in 1473, that Seekers were usually the smallest and fastest players and that most serious Quidditch accidents seemed to happen to them. And, perhaps least comforting of all, that although people rarely died playing Quidditch, referees had been known to vanish and turn up months later in the Sahara Desert.

"Harry, you'll be fine. You're only flying on a stick hundreds of feet in the air trying to catch something the size of a golfball." Thomas was hardly comforting as they stood in the freezing courtyard during one of their breaks. But Serena was more concerned about the buttons on her pea coat and Phoebe was running her hand through the flame of her lighter to see if it would burn her, he was grateful to be able to talk to another boy.

"Have you ever played before?"

"Nah. When my mum was alive, we mostly just tried to catch fairies. Afterwards, I was more into books and experiments."

"Oh, fairies exist?" Harry asked in interest.

"No."

From where they were standing, Harry could see Snape cross the yard. Harry noticed at once that Snape was limping. Even though Phoebe quickly put away her lighter, something about the four of them together seemed to make Snape suspicious and he limped over.

"What's that you've got there, Potter?" It was Quidditch Through the Ages. Harry showed him. "Library books are not to be taken outside the school. Give it to me. Five points from Gryffindor."

"He's just made that rule up." Harry muttered angrily as Snape limped away. "Wonder what's wrong with his leg?"

"I don't care, but I hope it's really hurting him." Phoebe put in.

* * *

The Gryffindor common room was very noisy that evening, everyone talking, everyone studying and trying to hurry through their work in time to watch the game the next day. Harry felt restless. He wanted Quidditch Through the Ages back, to take his mind off his nerves about tomorrow. Why should he be afraid of Snape? Getting up, he told the others he was going to ask Snape if he could have it.

"Nice knowing you." Thomas told him, looking at him as though he were a dead man walking, but Harry had an idea that Snape wouldn't refuse if there were other teachers listening.

He made his way down to the staff-room and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again. Nothing. Perhaps Snape had left the book in there? It was worth a try. He pushed the door ajar and peered inside... and a horrible scene met his eyes. Snape and Filch were inside, alone. Snape was holding his robes above his knees. One of his legs was bloody and mangled. Filch was handing Snape bandages.

"Blasted thing!" Snape was saying. "How are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?"

Harry tried to shut the door quietly, but...

"POTTER!" Snape's face was twisted with fury as he dropped his robes quickly to hide his leg. Harry gulped.

"I just wondered if I could have my book back."

"GET OUT! OUT!"

Harry left, before Snape could take any more points from Gryffindor. He sprinted back upstairs.

"You truly are the Boy Who Lived. Did you get it?" Thomas asked as Harry joined them.

"What's the matter?" Serena demanded, seeing the look on his face. In a low whisper, Harry told them what he'd seen.

"You know what this means?" He finished breathlessly. "He tried to get past that three-headed dog at Halloween! That's where he was going when we saw him. He's after whatever it's guarding! And I'd bet my broomstick he let that troll in, to make a diversion!"

"Would he really do that? He's an awful teacher, but-." Serena started.

"You can just leave it at 'he's awful'. He would." Phoebe seemed certain of his guilt, as was Harry, but Serena still seemed uncertain.

"But what's he after? What's that dog guarding?" Thomas had that 'its time for an adventure' tone of voice.

Harry went to bed with his head buzzing with the same question. Neville was snoring loudly, but Harry couldn't sleep. He tried to empty his mind. He needed to sleep, he had to, he had his first Quidditch match in a few hours... But the expression on Snape's face when Harry had seen his leg wasn't easy to forget.

* * *

The next morning dawned very bright and cold. The Great Hall was full of the delicious smell of fried sausages and the cheerful chatter of everyone looking forward to a good Quidditch match.

"You've got to eat some breakfast."

"I don't want anything."

"Just a bit of toast." Serena urged.

"I'm not hungry." Harry felt terrible. In an hour's time he'd be walking onto the field.

"Harry, you need your strength. Seekers are always the ones who get clobbered by the other team." Seamus Finnigan informed him.

"Thanks, Seamus."

By eleven o'clock the whole school seemed to be out in the stands around the Quidditch pitch. Many students had binoculars. The seats might have been raised high in the air, but it was still difficult to see what was going on sometimes. Phoebe, Thomas and Serena joined Neville, Seamus and Dean up in the top row.

As a surprise for Harry, they had painted a large banner on an old sheet. It said Potter for President and Dean, who was good at drawing, had done a large Gryffindor lion underneath. Then Thomas and Serena had teamed up to do a tricky little charm so that the paint flashed different colors.

Meanwhile, in the locker room, Harry and the rest of the team were changing into their scarlet Quidditch robes.

Wood cleared his throat for silence.

"Okay, men." He began.

"And women." Chaser Angelina Johnson put in.

"And women. This is it."

"The big one." Fred Weasley added.

"The one we've all been waiting for." George carried on.

"We know Oliver's speech by heart." Fred told Harry. "We were on the team last year."

"Shut up, you two. This is the best team Gryffindor's had in years. We're going to win. I know it." Wood glared at them all as if to say 'or else'. "Right. It's time. Good luck, all of you."

Harry followed Fred and George out of the locker room and, hoping his knees weren't going to give away, into the field.

Madam Hooch gave a loud blast on her silver whistle. Fifteen brooms rose up, high, high into the air. They were off.

"And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor. What an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive, too-."

"JORDAN!"

"Sorry, Professor." Lee Jordan was doing the commentary for the match, closely watched by Professor McGonagall. "And she's really belting along up there, a neat pass to Alicia Spinnet, a good find of Oliver Wood's, last year only a reserve... back to Johnson and... no, the Slytherins have taken the Quaffle, Slytherin Captain Marcus Flint gains the Quaffle and off he goes... Flint flying like an eagle up there... he's going to sc... no, stopped by an excellent move by Gryffindor Keeper Wood and the Gryffindors take the Quaffle... that's Chaser Katie Bell of Gryffindor there, nice dive around Flint, off up the field and... OUCH! That must have hurt, hit in the back of the head by a Bludger... Quaffle taken by the Slytherins... that's Adrian Pucey speeding off toward the goal posts, but he's blocked by a second Bludger... sent his way by Fred or George Weasley, can't tell which... nice play by the Gryffindor Beater, anyway, and Johnson back in possession of the Quaffle, a clear field ahead and off she goes. She's really flying... dodges a speeding Bludger... the goal posts are ahead, come on, now, Angelina... Keeper Bletchley dives... misses... GRYFFINDORS SCORE!" Gryffindor cheers filled the cold air, with howls and moans from the Slytherins.

"Budge up there, move along."

"Hagrid!" Serena and Phoebe squeezed together to give Hagrid enough space to join them.

"Bin watchin' from me hut." Hagrid said, patting a large pair of binoculars around his neck. "But it isn't the same as bein' in the crowd. No sign of the Snitch yet, eh?"

"Nope." Thomas kept his eyes glued to the game.

"Harry hasn't had much to do." Serena complained.

"Kept outta trouble, though, that's somethin'." Hagrid muttered, raising his binoculars and peering skyward at the speck that was Harry.

Way up above them, Harry was gliding over the game, squinting about for some sign of the Snitch. This was part of his and Wood's game plan.

"Keep out of the way until you catch sight of the Snitch." Wood had said. "We don't want you attacked before you have to be."

When Angelina had scored, Harry had done a couple of loop-the-loops to let off his feelings. Now he was back to staring around for the Snitch. Once he caught sight of a flash of gold, but it was just a reflection from one of the Weasleys' wristwatches and once a Bludger decided to come pelting his way, more like a cannonball than anything, but Harry dodged it and Fred Weasley came chasing after it.

"All right there, Harry?" He had time to yell, as he beat the Bludger furiously toward Marcus Flint.

"Slytherin in possession." Lee Jordan was saying. "Chaser Pucey ducks two Bludgers, two Weasleys, and Chaser Bell, and speeds toward the... wait a moment... was that the Snitch?"

A murmur ran through the crowd as Adrian Pucey dropped the Quaffle, too busy looking over his shoulder at the flash of gold that had passed his left ear. Harry saw it. In a great rush of excitement he dived downward after the streak of gold. Slytherin Seeker Terence Higgs had seen it, too. Neck and neck they hurtled toward the Snitch. All the Chasers seemed to have forgotten what they were supposed to be doing as they hung in midair to watch. Harry was faster than Higgs. He could see the little round ball, wings fluttering, darting up ahead... He put on an extra spurt of speed...

WHAM! A roar of rage echoed from the Gryffindors below. Marcus Flint had blocked Harry on purpose, and Harry's broom spun off course, Harry holding on for dear life.

"Foul!" The Gryffindors screamed. Madam Hooch spoke angrily to Flint and then ordered a free shot at the goal posts for Gryffindor. But in all the confusion, of course, the Golden Snitch had disappeared from sight again.

Down in the stands, Dean Thomas was yelling:

"Send him off, ref! Red card!"

"What are you talking about, Dean?" Neville asked.

"Red card! In soccer you get shown the red card and you're out of the game!"

"What's soccer?"

"Qudditch without flying or the snitch." Phoebe tried to explain quickly, learning as far forward as she could to keep Harry in sight.

"What?" Neville asked again, looking even more confused.

Lee Jordan was finding it difficult not to take sides.

"So, after that obvious and disgusting bit of cheating-."

"Jordan!"

"I mean, after that open and revolting foul."

"Jordan, I'm warning you-."

"All right, all right. Flint nearly kills the Gryffindor Seeker, which could happen to anyone, I'm sure, so a penalty to Gryffindor, taken by Spinner, who puts it away, no trouble, and we continue play, Gryffindor still in possession."

It was as Harry dodged another Bludger, which went spinning dangerously past his head, that it happened. His broom gave a sudden, frightening lurch. For a split second, he thought he was going to fall. He gripped the broom tightly with both his hands and knees. He'd never felt anything like that. It happened again. It was as though the broom was trying to buck him off. But Nimbus Two Thousands did not suddenly decide to buck their riders off. Harry tried to turn back toward the Gryffindor goal- posts, as he had half a mind to ask Wood to call time-out, and then he realized that his broom was completely out of his control. He couldn't turn it. He couldn't direct it at all. It was zigzagging through the air, and every now and then making violent swishing movements that almost unseated him.

Lee was still commentating.

"Slytherin in possession... Flint with the Quaffle... passes Spinnet... passes Bell... hit hard in the face by a Bludger, hope it broke his nose... only joking, Professor... Slytherins score... Oh no..." The Slytherins were cheering.

No one seemed to have noticed that Harry's broom was behaving strangely. It was carrying him slowly higher, away from the game, jerking and twitching as it went.

"Dunno what Harry thinks he's doing." Hagrid mumbled. He stared through his binoculars. "If I didn' know better, I'd say he'd lost control of his broom... but he can't have..."

Suddenly, people were pointing up at Harry all over the stands. His broom had started to roll over and over, with him only just managing to hold on. Then the whole crowd gasped. Harry's broom had given a wild jerk and Harry swung off it. He was now dangling from it, holding on with only one hand.

"Harry!" Serena shrieked in panic.

"Did something happen to it when Flint blocked him?" Seamus whispered.

"Can't have." Hagrid said, his voice shaking. "Can't nothing interfere with a broomstick except powerful Dark magic. No kid could do that to a Nimbus Two Thousand."

At these words, Phoebe seized Hagrid's binoculars, but instead of looking up at Harry, she started looking frantically at the crowd.

"What are you doing?" Thomas demanded, ducking as she swung the big binoculars back and forth.

"Snape. Look at that snake." Thomas grabbed the binoculars. Snape was in the middle of the stands opposite them. He had his eyes fixed on Harry and was muttering nonstop under his breath.

"What should we-?" Thomas started, but Phoebe had already slid underneath the bleachers and disappeared.

She sprinted under the seats, dodging swinging legs and tripping over old candy wrappers, until she reached the teacher's stand. She dug into her bag and pulled out her lighter. She held the flame against the hem of Snape's ropes and it caught instantly. She tucked it back into her bag and backed away, but kept close enough to watch.

It took perhaps thirty seconds for Snape to realize that he was on fire. A sudden yelp told her she had done her job. She smirked and started running back to her original seat.

The small distraction was enough. Up in the air, Harry was suddenly able to clamber back on to his broom.

"Neville, you can look!" Thomas said. Neville had been sobbing into Hagrid's jacket for the last five minutes. Serena looked ready to do the same but lit up when she saw the change.

Harry was speeding toward the ground when the crowd saw him clap his hand to his mouth as though he was about to be sick. He hit the field on all fours, coughed and something gold fell into his hand.

"I've got the Snitch!" He shouted, waving it above his head, and the game ended in complete confusion.

* * *

"He didn't catch it, he nearly swallowed it." Flint was still howling twenty minutes later, but it made no difference. Harry hadn't broken any rules and Lee Jordan was still happily shouting the results: Gryffindor had won by one hundred and seventy points to sixty.

Harry heard none of this, though. He was being made a cup of strong tea back in Hagrid's hut, with Thomas, Phoebe and Serena.

"It was Snape." Thomas was explaining. "Phoebe and I saw him. He was cursing your broomstick, muttering like a crazy person, his eyes glue on you like when a raccoon sees a trash bin."

"Why do I have to be the trash bin?" Harry wasn't fond of Thomas's analogy.

"Rubbish." Hagrid protested, who hadn't heard a word of what had gone on next to him in the stands. "Why would Snape do somethin' like that?"

The group looked at one another, wondering what to tell him. Harry decided on the truth.

"I found out something about him. He tried to get past that three-headed dog on Halloween. It bit him. We think he was trying to steal whatever it's guarding."

Hagrid dropped the teapot and it clattered to the floor. Fang whined and tried to crawl into Phoebe's lap.

"How do you know about Fluffy?" Hagrid demanded.

"Fluffy?" They echoed.

"Yeah. He's mine. Bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year. I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the-."

"Yes?" Harry asked eagerly.

"Now, don't ask me anymore." Hagrid said gruffly. "That's top secret, that is."

"But Snape's trying to steal it."

"Rubbish." Hagrid repeated. "Snape's a Hogwarts teacher, he'd do nothin' of the sort."

"So why did he just try and kill my best friend?" Serena was getting possessive and hysterical again. Harry patted her shoulder awkwardly.

"I'm tellin' yeh, yer wrong! I don' know why Harry's broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn' try an' kill a student! Now, listen to me, all four of yeh. Yer meddlin' in things that don' concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin', that's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel-."

"Aha!" Harry cried triumphantly. "So there's someone called Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?"

Hagrid looked furious with himself.


	12. Anonymous

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

* * *

Christmas was coming. One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts woke to find itself covered in several feet of snow. The lake froze solid and the Weasley twins were punished for bewitching several snowballs so that they followed Quirrell around, bouncing off the back of his turban. The few owls that managed to battle their way through the stormy sky to deliver mail had to be nursed back to health by Hagrid before they could fly off again.

No one could wait for the holidays to start. While the Gryffindor common room and the Great Hall had roaring fires, the drafty corridors had become icy and a bitter wind rattled the windows in the classrooms. Worst of all were Professor Snape's classes down in the dungeons, where their breath rose in a mist before them and they kept as close as possible to their hot cauldrons.

"I do feel so sorry for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they're not wanted at home." Malfoy said during one Potions class. He was looking over at Harry as he spoke. Crabbe and Goyle chuckled. Harry, who was measuring out powdered spine of lionfish, ignored them.

Malfoy had been even more unpleasant than usual since the Quidditch match. Disgusted that the Slytherins had lost, he had tried to get everyone laughing at how a wide-mouthed tree frog would be replacing Harry as Seeker next. Then he'd realized that nobody found this funny, because they were all so impressed at the way Harry had managed to stay on his bucking broomstick. So Malfoy, jealous and angry, had gone back to taunting Harry about having no proper family.

It was true that Harry wasn't going back to Privet Drive for Christmas. Professor McGonagall had come around the week before, making a list of students who would be staying for the holidays and Harry had signed up at once. He didn't feel sorry for himself at all; this would probably be the best Christmas he'd ever had. Serena was going home, but Thomas and Phoebe were staying. Thomas said his father had come down with something and Phoebe informed them that she wanted to avoid the orphanage as long as possible.

After Potions, they followed Hagrid to the Great Hall where he was delivering another tree so they could see the decorations.

The hall looked spectacular. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hung all around the walls, and no less than twelve towering Christmas trees stood around the room, some sparkling with tiny icicles, some glittering with hundreds of candles.

"How many days you got left until yer holidays?" Hagrid asked.

"Just one." Serena informed him.

"And that reminds me. We've got half an hour before lunch, we should be in the library." Phoebe said pointedly, giving Hagrid a fake smile.

"The library? Just before the holidays? Bit keen, aren't yeh?"

"Oh, we're not working." Harry told him brightly. "Ever since you mentioned Nicolas Flamel we've been trying to find out who he is."

"You what?" Hagrid looked shocked. "Listen here. I've told yeh: drop it. It's nothin' to you what that dog's guardin'."

"We just want to know who Nicolas Flamel is, that's all." Thomas held his hands in mock surrender, even though they wanted to know much more than that.

"Unless you'd like to tell us and save us the trouble?" Harry added. "We must've been through hundreds of books already and we can't find him anywhere. Just give us a hint. I know I've read his name somewhere."

"I'm sayin' nothin" Hagrid told him flatly.

"Just have to find out for ourselves, then." Phoebe sang mock-innocently and they left Hagrid looking disgruntled and hurried off to the library.

They had indeed been searching books for Flamel's name ever since Hagrid had let it slip, because how else were they going to find out what Snape was trying to steal? The trouble was, it was very hard to know where to begin, not knowing what Flamel might have done to get himself into a book. He wasn't in Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century, or Notable Magical Names of Our Time. He was missing, too, from Important Modern Magical Discoveries and A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry. And then, of course, there was the sheer size of the library; tens of thousands of books; thousands of shelves; hundreds of narrow rows.

Thomas had a scribbled list of books he wanted to look in, a list made during History of Magic class. Serena had one bookshelf she was working on from the bottom up. Phoebe randomly pulled books off shelves in hopes of stumbling across the right one. Harry wandered over to the Restricted Section. He had been wondering for a while if Flamel wasn't somewhere in there. Unfortunately, you needed a specially signed note from one of the teachers to look in any of the restricted books and he knew he'd never get one. These were the books containing powerful Dark Magic never taught at Hogwarts and only read by older students studying advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"What are you looking for, boy?"

"Nothing." Harry said quickly, perhaps too quickly. Madam Pince the librarian brandished a feather duster at him.

"You'd better get out, then. Go on. Out!" Wishing he'd been a bit quicker at thinking up some story, Harry left the library.

The four of them had already agreed they'd better not ask Madam Pince where they could find Flamel. They were sure she'd be able to tell them, but they couldn't risk Snape hearing what they were up to.

Harry waited outside in the corridor to see if the other two had found anything, but he wasn't very hopeful. They had been looking for two weeks, but as they only had odd moments between lessons it wasn't surprising they'd found nothing. What they really needed was a nice long search without Madam Pince breathing down their necks.

Five minutes later, the other three joined him, shaking their heads. They went off to lunch.

"You will keep looking while I'm away, won't you?" Serena asked as they walked towards the Great Hall. "And send me an owl if you find anything." They all nodded their agreement, too discouraged and hungry to bother with actual words.

As Phoebe and Thomas walked into the Great Hall, Serena caught the sleeve of Harry's robes and pulled him back. She was looking rather disappointed herself, but Harry thought it had more to do with leaving for the holidays than Flamel. She was invested in the investigation, as she knew now just how nasty Snape could be, but she wasn't as hard-core as they were about it.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with me? Mum says you're welcome there. You wouldn't have to go to the Dursley's; we have a pull-out couch." She put on her most hopeful expression but Harry shook his head at her.

"I want to stay here." He assured her and he really did. With Thomas and Phoebe staying, he was bound to have fun. Besides, Hogwarts, despite it's weirdness, felt more like home that Privet Drive did.

"Well, alright." She dropped his arm and brushed her hair back. "If you're sure..."

"I am."

"Alright." She repeated, but Harry could tell he'd hurt her feelings a bit. He tried to remember a Christmas they hadn't spent together in some way or another, but came up blank. They'd known each other since nursery school, after all, and had stuck close in the years since.

"See you in January." He said cheerfully, realizing perhaps that wasn't comforting, and hurried into the Great Hall before he could dig himself any deeper.

* * *

Once the holidays had started, Harry, Thomas and Phoebe were having too good a time to think much about Flamel or anything else of real importance. The three of them had their dormitories to themselves. Boys couldn't get up to the girls' dormitory due to a protective spell, but girls could get up to the boys'. Phoebe usually ended up crashing in their dormitory at day's end in Neville's vacated bed. Thomas only got a bloody nose once for teasing her about having a stuffed dog that she always slept with.

The common room was also far emptier than usual, so they were able to get the good armchairs by the fire. That became their usual spot over the holidays while they gathered up anything they could spear on a toasting fork: bread, English muffins, marshmallows... Nearly one of Phoebe's training bras as she insisted it was some sort of rite of passage for crazy people...

Thomas also started teaching Harry and Phoebe wizard chess. This was exactly like Muggle chess except that the figures were alive, which made it a lot like directing troops in battle. Thomas's set was old and battered, having belonged to his father and friends before him. However, old chessmen weren't a drawback at all. Thomas knew them so well he never had trouble getting them to do what he wanted. Harry and Phoebe played with chessmen Seamus Finnigan had lent them and they didn't trust Harry at all. He wasn't a very good player yet and they kept shouting different bits of advice at him, which was confusing:

"Don't send me there, can't you see his knight? Send him, we can afford to lose him."

Phoebe, on the other hand, was an excellent player. She had an eye for strategy and no regard for the safety of her semi-sentient pieces so long as she won the game. And, as long as she had her queen, she did win nearly every game. Even Thomas, who had years of practice over both of them, could rarely outsmart her. Harry stood no chance at all, but he had fun watching Phoebe and Thomas hurl insults at each other as they played:

"Oh, you mother hugger... I needed that rook!"

"You son of monkey, don't you take... What did I just say?!"

"Don't you... don't you... Oh, you little psychopath!"

On Christmas Eve, Harry went to bed looking forward to the next day of food and fun, but not expecting any presents. When he woke up the next morning, though, the first thing he saw was a small pile of presents at the foot of his bed. His heart leaped into his throat; someone had given him presents!

He jumped off his bed, nearly tripping over the curtain surrounding it, and jumped onto the nearest bed, which happened to be Phoebe's. There was a small pile of presents at the end of her bed as well, just waiting to get ripped in.

"Phoebe, wake up, we've got-." Phoebe woke up with a start and shoved Harry off the bed so he landed hard on the floor. It didn't put a damper on his excitement and he ran to wake up Thomas, who woke up slower, but less violently.

"I have presents?" Phoebe looked completely dumbstruck as she climbed out of bed to examine the pile.

"What did you expect? Coal?" Thomas asked as he scrambled to the foot of his bed to grab at his pile.

Harry ran back to his pile and picked up the first package. It was wrapped in thick brown paper and scrawled across it was:

 _To Harry, from Hagrid._

Inside was a roughly cut wooden flute that Hagrid had obviously whittled himself. Harry blew it; it sounded a bit like an owl.

Phoebe was examining a set of fancy-looking quills she'd received. When Harry asked who had sent them to her, she replied, a bit smugly, that they were from Professor McGonagall. By the time Phoebe and Harry had unwrapped one of their presents, Thomas had torn through all of his. Judging by the objects scattered on his bed, he had new books, a whittled bear figurine obviously from Hagrid and an unhealthy amount of chocolate.

Phoebe unwrapped a small parcel and found a whittled dog figurine from Hagrid that looked as though it had been modeled after Fang.

As for Harry, a second, very small parcel contained a note:

 _We received your message and enclose your Christmas present._

 _From Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia._

Taped to the note was a fifty-pence piece.

"That's friendly." Harry muttered, though it wasn't the worst thing he'd ever gotten from them.

From Thomas's father, Remus, Harry received his very own copy of Quidditch Through The Ages and Phoebe got a Spell-Of-The-Day calendar. From Ms. Larkin, all three of them got thick, warm jackets and a tin of cookies. Serena got them all candy from Diagon Alley and, all at once, they realized that they hadn't gotten her anything. They agreed they would make it up to her however they could when she returned to school.

There was one parcel left for Harry. He picked it up and felt it, finding that it was very light. He unwrapped it. Something fluid and silvery gray went slithering to the floor where it lay in gleaming folds.

Thomas made a sound of surprise and hurried over. Phoebe crept nearer as well, holding an eagle-feather quill out like a sword pointed towards the object.

"What is it?" Harry asked, reaching down to grab it. It was strange to the touch, like water woven into material.

"It's a cloak... It can't be... Put it on." Thomas urged.

Harry threw it around his shoulders and his friends yelled in surprise, pointing at his legs. Harry looked down at his feet, but they were gone. He dashed to the mirror. Sure enough, his reflection looked back at him, just his head suspended in midair, his body completely invisible. He pulled the cloak over his head and his reflection vanished completely.

"There's a note." Phoebe pointed with her quill at the letter that had fallen out of the cloak and onto the floor. Harry pulled off the cloak and seized the letter. Written in narrow, loopy writing he had never seen before were the following words:

 _Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well. A Very Merry Christmas to you_.

There was no signature. Harry stared at the note while his friends examined the cloak.

"I wonder how tough this is. Like, is it non-flammable? Is it washing machine safe? Would it turn the washing machine invisible?" Thomas was wondering aloud.

"Imagine the places you could get in with this. The things you could steal. The people you could screw with." Phoebe looked delighted with it.

Harry felt very strange. Who had sent the cloak? Had it really once belonged to his father? Before he could ponder on it too long, Thomas was complaining about being hungry. So they cleaned up the wrapping paper, stowed the cloak away in Harry's trunk and hurried down to the Great Hall.

Harry had never in all his life had such a Christmas dinner. A hundred fat, roast turkeys; mountains of roast and boiled potatoes; platters of chipolatas; tureens of buttered peas, silver boats of thick, rich gravy and cranberry sauce and stacks of wizard crackers every few feet along the table.

The fantastic party favors were nothing like the feeble Muggle ones the Dursleys usually bought, with their little plastic toys and their flimsy paper hats inside. Harry pulled a wizard cracker with Thomas and it didn't just bang, it went off with a blast like a cannon and engulfed them all in a cloud of blue smoke, while from the inside exploded a rear admiral's hat and several live, white mice.

Up at the High Table, Dumbledore had swapped his pointed wizard's hat for a flowered bonnet and was chuckling merrily at a joke Professor Flitwick had just read him.

Flaming Christmas puddings followed the turkey. A couple students nearly broke their teeth on a silver sickle embedded in the slices. He watched Hagrid getting redder and redder in the face as he called for more wine, finally kissing Professor McGonagall on the cheek, who, to Harry's amazement, giggled and blushed, her top hat lopsided.

When Harry finally left the table, he was laden down with a stack of things out of the crackers, including a pack of non-explodable, luminous balloons, a Grow-Your-Own-Warts kit and his own new wizard chess set. He decided to give the chess set to Phoebe as a Christmas present to her and earned himself a kiss on the cheek that made him redden with embarrassment.

Harry, his friends and the Weasley boys spent a happy afternoon having a furious snowball fight on the grounds. Then, cold, wet and gasping for breath, they returned to the fire in the Gryffindor common room and played wizard's chess and exploding snap.

After a meal of turkey sandwiches, crumpets, trifle, and Christmas cake, everyone felt too full and sleepy to do much before bed except sit and watch Percy Weasley chase Fred, George and Phoebe all over Gryffindor tower because they'd stolen his prefect badge. They continued tossing it around to keep it just out of Percy's reach, ducking under tables and jumping over chairs whenever he got too close.

It had been Harry's best Christmas day ever. Yet something had been nagging at the back of his mind all day. Not until he climbed into bed was he free to think about it: the invisibility cloak and whoever had sent it. Thomas, full of turkey and cake and with nothing mysterious to bother him, fell asleep almost as soon as he'd drawn the curtains of his four-poster. Phoebe had fallen asleep in her own dormitory, with Percy's prefect badge safe with her as boys couldn't enter the girl's dormitory.

Harry leaned over the side of his own bed and pulled the cloak out from under it. His father's... This had been his father's. He let the material flow over his hands, smoother than silk, light as air. Use it well, the note had said. He had to try it, now.

He slipped out of bed and wrapped the cloak around himself. Looking down at his legs, he saw only moonlight and shadows. It was a very funny feeling. _Use it well._

Suddenly, Harry felt wide-awake. The whole of Hogwarts was open to him in this cloak. Excitement flooded through him as he stood there in the dark and silence. He could go anywhere in this, anywhere, and Filch would never know.

Thomas mumbled something about chocolate in his sleep. Harry wondered if he should wake his friend. Something held him back; it was his father's cloak. He felt that this time, the first time, he wanted to use it alone.

He crept out of the dormitory, down the stairs, across the common room, and climbed through the portrait hole.

"Who's there?" The Fat Lady squawked, but Harry said nothing. He walked quickly down the corridor. Where should he go? He stopped, his heart racing, and thought. And then it came to him. The Restricted Section in the library. He'd be able to read as long as he liked, as long as it took to find out who Flamel was. He set off, drawing the invisibility cloak tight around him as he walked.


	13. I Show Not Your Face But Your Heart

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

* * *

The library was pitch-black and very eerie. Harry lit a lamp to see his way along the rows of books. The lamp looked as if it was floating along in midair and, even though Harry could feel his arm supporting it, the sight gave him the creeps.

The Restricted Section was right at the back of the library. Stepping carefully over the rope that separated these books from the rest of the library, he held up his lamp to read the titles. They didn't tell him much. Their peeling, faded gold letters spelled words in languages Harry couldn't understand. Some had no title at all. One book had a dark stain on it that looked horribly like blood.

The hairs on the back of Harry's neck prickled. Maybe he was imagining it, maybe not, but he thought a faint whispering was coming from the books, as though they knew someone was there who shouldn't be. He had to start somewhere. Setting the lamp down carefully on the floor, he looked along the bottom shelf for an interesting looking book. A large black and silver volume caught his eye. He pulled it out with difficulty, because it was very heavy, and, balancing it on his knee, let it fall open. A piercing, bloodcurdling shriek split the silence. The book was screaming!

Harry snapped it shut, but the shriek went on and on, one high, unbroken, earsplitting note. He stumbled backward and knocked over his lamp, which went out at once. Panicking, he heard footsteps coming down the corridor outside. Stuffing the shrieking book back on the shelf, he ran for it.

He passed Filch in the doorway; Filch's pale, wild eyes looked straight through him and Harry slipped under Filch's outstretched arm and streaked off up the corridor, the book's shrieks still ringing in his ears. He came to a sudden halt in front of a tall suit of armor. He had been so busy getting away from the library, he hadn't paid attention to where he was going. Perhaps because it was dark, he didn't recognize where he was at all. There was a suit of armor near the kitchens, he knew, but he must be five floors above there.

"You asked me to come directly to you, Professor, if anyone was wandering around at night, and somebody's been in the library Restricted Section." Harry felt the blood drain out of his face. Wherever he was, Filch must know a shortcut, because his soft, greasy voice was getting nearer.

To his horror, it was Snape who replied:

"The Restricted Section? Well, they can't be far, we'll catch them." Harry stood rooted to the spot as Filch and Snape came around the corner ahead. They couldn't see him, of course, but it was a narrow corridor and if they came much nearer they'd knock right into him. The cloak didn't stop him from being solid. He backed away as quietly as he could.

A door stood ajar to his left. It was his only hope. He squeezed through it, holding his breath, trying not to move it and to his relief he managed to get inside the room without them noticing anything. They walked straight past and Harry leaned against the wall, breathing deeply, listening to their footsteps dying away. That had been close, very close.

It was a few seconds before he noticed anything about the room he had hidden in. It looked like an unused classroom. The dark shapes of desks and chairs were piled against the walls and there was an upturned wastepaper basket, but propped against the wall facing him was something that didn't look as if it belonged there, something that looked as if someone had just put it there to keep it out of the way. It was a magnificent mirror, as high as the ceiling, with an ornate gold frame, standing on two clawed feet. There was an inscription carved around the top: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.

His panic fading now that there was no sound of Filch and Snape, Harry moved nearer to the mirror, wanting to look at himself but see no reflection again. He stepped in front of it. He had to clap his hands to his mouth to stop himself from screaming. He whirled around. His heart was pounding far more furiously than when the book had screamed. He had seen not only himself in the mirror, but a whole crowd of people standing right behind him. But the room was empty. Breathing very fast, he turned slowly back to the mirror. There he was, reflected in it, white and scared-looking, and there, reflected behind him, were at least ten others. Harry looked over his shoulder, but still, no one was there. Or were they all invisible, too? Was he in fact in a room full of invisible people and this mirror's trick was that it reflected them, invisible or not?

He looked in the mirror again. A woman standing right behind his reflection was smiling at him and waving. He reached out a hand and felt the air behind him. If she was really there, he'd touch her, their reflections were so close together, but he felt only air. She and the others existed only in the mirror. She was a very pretty woman. She had dark red hair and her eyes... _Her eyes are just like mine_ , Harry thought, edging a little closer to the glass. Bright green, exactly the same shape... But then he noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time.

The tall, thin, black-haired man standing next to her put his arm around her. He wore glasses and his hair was very untidy. It stuck up at the back, just as Harry's did. Harry was so close to the mirror now that his nose was nearly touching that of his reflection.

"Mom?" He whispered. "Dad?" They just looked at him, smiling.

And slowly, Harry looked into the faces of the other people in the mirror, and saw other pairs of green eyes like his, other noses like his, even a little old man who looked as though he had Harry's knobbly knees... Harry was looking at his family, for the first time in his life.

The Potters smiled and waved at Harry and he stared hungrily back at them, his hands pressed flat against the glass as though he was hoping to fall right through it and reach them. He had a powerful kind of ache inside him, half joy, half terrible sadness. How long he stood there, he didn't know. The reflections did not fade and he looked and looked until a distant noise brought him back to his senses.

He couldn't stay here, he had to find his way back to bed. He tore his eyes away from his mother's face.

"I'll come back." He promised in a whisper and hurried from the room.

* * *

Phoebe and Thomas were thunderstruck when Harry told them about the mirror. As Harry had expected, they insisted on going back that night to see it for themselves.

As for Harry, he couldn't concentrate on anything that day, not even what had consumed his thoughts for the past several weeks. He had seen his parents and would be seeing them again that night. He had almost forgotten about Flamel. It didn't seem very important anymore. Who cared what the three headed dog was guarding? What did it matter if Snape stole it, really?

As night finally fell and the last of the Weasley boys drifted upstairs to bed, Harry grabbed his cloak. The three of them fit under the cloak together, but not without some grumbling about the close proximity required, and they set off. What Harry feared most was that he might not be able to find the mirror room again. They tried retracing Harry's route from the library, wandering around the dark passageways for nearly an hour, according to Thomas's watch.

Just as Phoebe was whispering about the dangers of frostbite and how they were going to have to saw her feet off at the ankle with rusty knives, Harry spotted the suit of armor.

"It's here... just here... yes!" They pushed the door open. Harry dropped the cloak from around his shoulders and ran to the mirror. There they were. His mother and father beamed at the sight of him and he smiled back.

"See?" Harry whispered as his friends hurried over.

"I can't see anything." Phoebe protested bitterly; any excitement she'd had about the mirror had disappeared during their hour long trek through the castle.

"Look! Look at them all... There are loads of them..." Harry pointed.

"I can only see you, you moron." She snapped.

"Look in it properly, go on, stand where I am." Harry stepped aside, but with Phoebe in front of the mirror, he couldn't see his family anymore, just Phoebe in her black nightgown and combat boots.

Phoebe, however, finally saw something in the mirror. But wasn't her family, or even Harry's. It was herself, older, tall, better looking. But that wasn't all. She saw dark cloaked Death Eaters cowering in fear; she had her wand out and she seemed to exude power. Phoebe stepped closer and saw it wasn't just faceless Death Eaters that were cowering. One of them was a man with familiar black hair and grey eyes. Her father. Sirius Black. He was where he belonged, below her. She was a hero, taking out Death Eaters and murderers...

"Can you see all your family standing around you?" Harry asked excitedly.

"No."

"What do you see?"

"Me. And I'm... amazing."

"Let me see." Thomas shoved her out of the way to stand in front of the mirror.

He saw himself, his father and his mother together. His father was healthy and strong, his mother alive and well. Everyone looked happy. He reached towards the mirror to touch his mother's hand, but only felt the cold glass beneath his fingers.

"Let me have another look." Harry whined.

"You had it all night." Phoebe reminded him pointedly.

"I want to see my parents." Harry protested.

"I want to see my mom." Thomas shot back without tearing his eyes away from what the mirror was showing him.

"I want to see them cowering in fear of me." Phoebe said excitedly, trying to shove her way back in front of the mirror.

"You wanna what now?"

It quickly turned into a three way shoving match between the friends, which then turned into a full-on wrestling match on the floor. They kept saying 'don't shove me' while bodily shoving and hitting each other. A sudden noise outside in the corridor put an end to their fight and they froze, Phoebe still holding Harry in a headlock, Harry still lying on top of Thomas while the other boy finally stopped trying to bite him.

"Crap!" Phoebe cursed and the boys agreed. They untangled themselves from each other and ran for the cloak. Phoebe managed to get there first and she grabbed it from the floor. They threw it over themselves and froze again.

The luminous eyes of Mrs. Norris came around the door. Phoebe, Thomas and Harry stood frozen, hearts pounding, all thinking the same thing: did the cloak work on cats? After what seemed an age, she turned and left.

"She probably went for Filch." Phoebe whispered.

"We gotta go." Thomas said reluctantly. Harry looked back towards the mirror one last time and then they ran for Gryffindor tower.

* * *

The snow still hadn't melted the next morning, so the Gryffindor's stayed in the tower. They played games and made each other laugh, but Harry couldn't stop thinking about the mirror. It was too dangerous, even with the cloak, to go find it during the day. So he waited until everyone was asleep that night, which seemed to take an eternity.

He thought maybe he was being selfish, taking the cloak and leaving Thomas and Phoebe behind. But he wanted the mirror to himself again, without having to fight over it. He'd take the two of them under the cloak another time...

That night he found his way more quickly than before. He was walking so fast he knew he was making more noise than was wise, but he didn't meet anyone.

And there were his mother and father smiling at him again, and one of his grandfathers nodding happily. Harry sank down to sit on the floor in front of the mirror. There was nothing to stop him from staying here all night with his family. Nothing at all. Except...

"So, back again, Harry?" Harry felt as though his insides had turned to ice. He looked behind him. Sitting on one of the desks by the wall was none other than Albus Dumbledore. Harry must have walked straight past him, so desperate to get to the mirror he hadn't noticed him.

"I didn't see you, sir." He admitted, scrambling to his feet.

"Strange how nearsighted being invisible can make you." Dumbledore mused and Harry was relieved to see that he was smiling. "So you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised." Dumbledore stood up and walked over to stand next to Harry.

"I didn't know it was called that, sir." It seemed the least dangerous thing to admit.

"But I expect you've realized by now what it does?"

"It... well... it shows me my family..." Harry stammered.

"And it showed your friends other things."

"How did you know-?"

"I don't need a cloak to become invisible." Dumbledore told him gently. "Now, can you think what the Mirror of Erised shows us all?"

Harry looked back at the mirror, at his mother's smiling face and his father's gleaming eyes. He shook his head.

"Let me explain. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is. Does that help?" Harry thought. Then he said slowly:

"It shows us what we want... whatever we want..."

"Yes and no. It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Thomas Lupin, who lost his mother too young, sees her standing before him once more. Phoebe Black, who has been put down her whole life, sees herself with the power to make others too afraid to hurt her. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible. The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry, and I ask you not to go looking for it again. If you ever do run across it, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. Now, why don't you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed?"

"Sir... Professor Dumbledore? Can I ask you something?"

"Obviously, you've just done so." Dumbledore smiled. "You may ask me one more thing, however."

"What do you see when you look in the mirror?"

"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks." Harry stared at him. "One can never have enough socks. Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books."

It was only when he was back in bed that it struck Harry that Dumbledore might not have been quite truthful. But then, he thought, as he stored his cloak away in his trunk once more, it had been quite a personal question.


	14. Answers and New Problems

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

* * *

Dumbledore had convinced Harry not to go looking for the Mirror of Erised again and for the rest of the Christmas holidays the invisibility cloak stayed folded at the bottom of his trunk. Harry wished he could forget what he'd seen in the mirror as easily, but he couldn't. He started having nightmares. Over and over again he dreamed about his parents disappearing in a flash of green light, while a high voice cackled with laughter.

When Serena returned from her holidays the day before term began, he told her about the mirror and his nightmares. They sat on one of moving staircases to talk, since everyone else was in their house common rooms. As he finished his story, Serena chewed on her thumbnail.

"That mirror sounds... creepy." She admitted. "But I wish I'd had the chance to see it. It may not be useful, but it would be nice to see, just once..."

"Well, I don't think we'll be seeing it again." Harry told her and she nodded in agreement.

The staircase swung around again, connecting with a loud click against the one heading to Gryffindor tower. Serena stood up, straightened her blazer and jerked her head towards the tower.

"Come on, let's go see Thomas and Phoebe." She tugged him up by the hand and they hurried to get to the common room before any other staircase changed on a whim.

"I'm sorry we didn't get you anything for Christmas." Harry muttered, remembering her own gift of candy to him. Serena just laughed.

"Boys never remember."

"Phoebe didn't either!" Harry reminded her, eager to defend himself and Thomas.

"Phoebe's... Phoebe." Serena shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I didn't give you guys gifts in hopes of something in return. I just wanted to get you guys stuff." She explained. Harry flushed at her words and she giggled, jogging ahead to get through the portrait hole.

* * *

Quidditch practice began once more and Wood was working the team harder than ever. Even the endless rain that had replaced the snow couldn't dampen his spirits. The Weasley twins complained that Wood was becoming a fanatic, but Harry was on Wood's side. If they won their next match, against Hufflepuff, they would overtake Slytherin in the house championship for the first time in seven years. Quite apart from wanting to win, Harry found that he had fewer nightmares when he was tired out after training.

Then, during one particularly wet and muddy practice session, Wood gave the team a bit of bad news. He'd just gotten very angry with the twins, who kept dive-bombing each other and pretending to fall off their brooms.

"Will you stop messing around!" He yelled. "That's exactly the sort of thing that'll lose us the match! Snape's refereeing this time, and he'll be looking for any excuse to knock points off Gryffindor!"

George Weasley really did fall off his broom at these words, sending a shower of mud spraying upwards as he landed in a gigantic puddle.

"Snape's refereeing?" He spluttered through a mouthful of mud. "When's he ever refereed a Quidditch match? He's not going to be fair if we might overtake Slytherin."

The rest of the team landed next to George to complain, too. Loudly.

"It's not my fault. We've just got to make sure we play a clean game, so Snape hasn't got an excuse to pick on us." Wood told them. Which was all very well, Harry thought, but he had another reason for not wanting Snape near him while he was playing Quidditch...

The rest of the team hung back to talk to one another as usual at the end of practice, but Harry headed straight back to the Gryffindor common room, where he found his three friends. Serena was sketching in her sketchbook while Thomas and Phoebe cursed at each other over another wizard's chess game. Speaking quietly so that no one else would hear, Harry told them about Snape's sudden, sinister desire to be a Quidditch referee.

"Don't play, Harry. You'll just get hurt." Serena begged at once.

"Say you're ill." Thomas told him.

"Go to one of the other teachers." Serena suggested.

"Pretend to break your leg." Phoebe advised.

"Really get ill. I have ways to make you puke so much-." Thomas started.

"Really break your leg. I can help." Phoebe said in a sinister tone. Harry scooted away from her.

"I can't do any of that." He told them. "There isn't a reserve Seeker. If I back out, Gryffindor can't play at all."

At that moment Neville toppled into the common room. How he had managed to climb through the portrait hole was anyone's guess, because his legs had been stuck together with what they recognized at once as the Leg-Locker Curse. He must have had to bunny hop all the way up to Gryffindor tower.

All the other students in the common room fell over laughing at him, but Thomas grabbed his wand and preformed the counter-curse for him. Neville's legs sprang apart and he got to his feet, trembling and looking ready to cry. Phoebe abandoned her seat to drag him over to them and shove him down in it.

"Who did this?" She demanded and Harry was very suddenly reminded of interrogators on the old cop dramas Aunt Petunia watched.

"Malfoy." Neville admitted shakily. "I met him outside the library. He said he'd been looking for someone to practice that on."

"You should report him." Serena told him, slamming her sketchbook closed against her knee.

"I don't want more trouble." He mumbled.

"You've got to stand up to him, Neville! He's used to being the wolf. Stop being his chicken."

"There's no need to tell me I'm not brave enough to be in Gryffindor, Malfoy's already done that." Neville choked out.

Harry felt in the pocket of his robes and pulled out a Chocolate Frog, the very last one from the box Serena had given him for Christmas. He gave it to Neville, who looked as though he might cry.

"You're worth twelve of Malfoy." Harry assured him. "The Sorting Hat chose you for Gryffindor, didn't it? And where's Malfoy? In stinking Slytherin." Neville's lips twitched in a weak smile as he unwrapped the frog.

"Thanks, Harry... I think I'll go to bed... D'you want the card? You collect them, don't you?" As Neville walked away, Harry looked at the Famous Wizard card.

"Dumbledore again. He was the first one I ever-." He gasped. He stared at the back of the card. Then he looked up at the others. "I've found him! I've found Flamel! I told you I'd read the name somewhere before, I read it on the train coming here. Listen to this: Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel!"

He had barely finished reading the card before Thomas was snatching it out of his hands and running out the portrait hole. Harry, Serena and Phoebe looked at each other in confusion. Thomas returned a second later, looking annoyed.

"Follow me." The others scrambled to their feet and raced after him.

Thomas led them to their library, where he innocently presented the card to Madam Pince and asked who Nicholas Flamel was. The librarian took down a book, flipped open to a page and presented it to them before returning to her dusting. The four of them gathered closely to read over reach others shoulders.

 _The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal._

 _There have been many reports of the Sorcerer's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight)._

"That monster of a dog-." Thomas started.

"Fluffy." Serena reminded them, only to be shushed by Phoebe and Harry.

"-must be guarding Flamel's Sorcerer's Stone! If Flamel would trust anyone to guard it, he'd trust his _friend._ Dumbledore."

"A stone that makes gold and stops you from ever dying! No wonder Snape's after it! Anyone would want it." Harry whispered.

"I want it. Can we steal it?" Phoebe asked honestly.

"Find what you were looking for?" Madam Pince appeared on the other side of the able and they all looked up.

"Yes, thank you!" They gave her their best smiles and hurried back to Gryffindor tower.

* * *

The next morning in Defense Against the Dark Arts, while copying down different ways of treating werewolf bites, Harry and Phoebe were still discussing what they'd do with a Sorcerer's Stone if they had one. It wasn't until Phoebe said she'd buy a catapult to put Snape in that Harry remembered about Snape's involvement in the coming match.

"I'm going to play." He told the others. "If I don't, all the Slytherins will think I'm just too scared to face Snape. I'll show them... It'll really wipe the smiles off their faces if we win."

"Just as long as we're not wiping you off the field with a mop." Serena hissed, chewing on her thumbnail.

As the match drew nearer, however, Harry became more and more nervous, whatever he told his friends. The rest of the team wasn't too calm, either. The idea of overtaking Slytherin in the house championship was wonderful, as no one had done it for seven years, but would they be allowed to, with such a biased referee?

Harry didn't know whether he was imagining it or not, but he seemed to keep running into Snape wherever he went. At times, he even wondered whether Snape was following him, trying to catch him on his own.

Potions lessons were turning into a sort of weekly torture, Snape was so horrible to Harry. Could Snape possibly know they'd found out about the Sorcerer's Stone? Harry didn't see how he could. Yet he sometimes had the horrible feeling that Snape could read minds.

Harry knew, when they wished him good luck outside the locker rooms the next afternoon, that his friends were wondering whether they'd ever see him alive again. Mostly because Phoebe and Thomas were discussing flowers to buy for his funeral until Serena got a bit hystical again and beat them about the heads and shoulders with her fur mittens. None of this was what you'd call comforting.

Harry hardly heard a word of Wood's pep talk as he pulled on his Quidditch robes and picked up his Nimbus Two Thousand. Wood pulled him aside.

"Don't want to pressure you, Potter, but if we ever need an early capture of the Snitch it's now. Finish the game before Snape can favor Hufflepuff too much."

"The whole school's out there!" Fred Weasley announced, peering out of the door. "Even, blimey, Dumbledore's come to watch!" Harry's heart did a somersault.

"Dumbledore?" He echoed, dashing to the door to make sure. Fred was right. There was no mistaking that silver beard. Harry could have laughed out loud with relief. H was safe. There was simply no way that Snape would dare to try to hurt him if Dumbledore was watching.

Perhaps that was why Snape was looking so angry as the teams marched onto the field, something that people in the stands noticed too.

"Who peed in his cereal?" Phoebe muttered.

"Phoebe." Serena seemed exasperated.

"Ow!" Thomas cried as a wand jabbed him in the back of the head.

"Oh, sorry, Malfoy, didn't see you there." Malfoy grinned broadly, with Crabbe and Goyle by his side like always. "Wonder how long Potter's going to stay on his broom this time? Anyone want a bet? What about you, Black?" No one answered.

Snape had just awarded Hufflepuff a penalty because George Weasley had hit a Bludger at him. Serena, who had her fingers crossed in her lap, was squinting fixedly at Harry, who was circling the game like a hawk, looking for the Snitch.

"You know how I think they choose people for the Gryffindor team?" Malfoy spoke loudly a few minutes later, as Snape awarded Hufflepuff another penalty for no reason at all. "It's people they feel sorry for. See, there's Potter, who's got no parents, then there's the Weasleys, who've got no money. You should be on the team, Longbottom, you've got no brains."

Neville went bright red but turned in his seat to face Malfoy.

"I'm worth twelve of you, Malfoy." He stammered. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle howled with laughter.

"Longbottom, if brains were morals, you'd be even worse than Black and that's saying something."

"Hey!" Phoebe spun around, eyes blazing. Thomas turned his head too, his own eyes narrowing dangerously.

"Look at Harry!" Serena cried, pointing wildly. Harry had suddenly gone into a spectacular dive, which drew gasps and cheers from the crowd. Serena stood up, her crossed fingers in her mouth, as Harry streaked toward the ground like a bullet.

"Take that back!" Neville stammered in defense of Phoebe.

"Or what?" Malfoy challenged.

"FOR NARNIA!" Thomas shouted and, before Malfoy knew what was happening, Thomas was on top of him, wrestling him to the ground.

"AND FOR ASLAN!" Phoebe screamed and jumped on Crabbe's back. Neville hesitated, then clambered over the back of his seat to help.

"Come on, Harry! Get it! Get it!" Serena screamed, leaping onto her seat to watch as Harry sped straight at Snape.

She didn't even notice Malfoy and Thomas rolling around under her seat, or the scuffles and yelps coming from the whirl of fists that was Neville, Phoebe, Crabbe, and Goyle.

Up in the air, Snape turned on his broomstick just in time to see something scarlet shoot past him, missing him by inches. The next second, Harry had pulled out of the dive, his arm raised in triumph, the Snitch clasped in his hand. The stands erupted; it had to be a record, no one could ever remember the Snitch being caught so quickly.

Serena shrieked Harry's name in a sort of chant as Harry jumped off his broom, a foot from the ground. He couldn't believe it. He'd done it. The game was over; it had barely lasted five minutes. As Gryffindors came spilling onto the field, he saw Snape land nearby, white-faced and tight-lipped. Then Harry felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up into Dumbledore's smiling face.

"Well done." Dumbledore spoke quietly, so that only Harry could hear. "Nice to see you haven't been brooding about that mirror... Been keeping busy... Excellent..."

Snape spat bitterly on the ground.

* * *

Harry left the locker room alone some time later, to take his Nimbus Two Thousand back to the broomshed. He couldn't ever remember feeling happier. He'd really done something to be proud of now. No one could say he was just a famous name any more.

The evening air had never smelled so sweet. He walked over the damp grass, reliving the last hour in his head, which was a happy blur: Gryffindors running to lift him onto their shoulders; his friends in the distance, jumping up and down. Thomas cheering through a heavy nosebleed, Phoebe cradling a very bruised and bleeding hand.

Harry had reached the shed. He leaned against the wooden door and looked up at Hogwarts, with its windows glowing red in the setting sun. Gryffindor in the lead... He'd done it, he'd shown Snape...

And speaking of Snape... A hooded figure came swiftly down the front steps of the castle. Clearly not wanting to be seen, it walked as fast as possible toward the forbidden forest. Harry's victory faded from his mind as he watched. He recognized the figure's prowling walk. Snape, sneaking into the forest while everyone else was at dinner...

Harry jumped back on his Nimbus Two Thousand and took off. Gliding silently over the castle he saw Snape enter the forest at a run. He followed. The trees were so thick he couldn't see where Snape had gone. He flew in circles, lower and lower, brushing the top branches of trees until he heard voices. He glided toward them and landed noiselessly in a towering beech tree. He climbed carefully along one of the branches, holding tight to his broomstick, trying to see through the leaves.

Below, in a shadowy clearing, stood Snape, but he wasn't alone. Quirrell was there, too. Harry couldn't make out the look on his face, but he was stuttering worse than ever. Harry strained to catch what they were saying.

"D-don't know why you wanted t-t-to meet here of all p-places, Severus..."

"Oh, I thought we'd keep this private." Snape said, his voice icy. "Students aren't supposed to know about the Sorcerer's Stone, after all."

Harry leaned forward. Quirrell was mumbling something. Snape interrupted him.

"Have you found out how to get past that beast of Hagrid's yet?"

"B-b-but Severus, I-."

"You don't want me as your enemy, Quirrell." Snape threatened, taking a step toward him.

"I-I don't know what you-."

"You know perfectly well what I mean." An owl hooted loudly and Harry nearly fell out of the tree. He steadied himself in time to hear Snape say: "-your little bit of hocus-pocus. I'm waiting."

"B-but I d-d-don't-."

"Very well." Snape cut in. "We'll have another little chat soon, when you've had time to think things over and decided where your loyalties lie."

He threw his cloak over his head and strode out of the clearing. It was almost dark now, but Harry could see Quirrell, standing quite still as though he was petrified.

* * *

"Harry, where have you been?" Serena squeaked as he entered the castle once more. "We won! You won! We won!" She hugged him tightly, a giant Cheshire cat smile on her face.

Thomas and Phoebe were doing the Macarena dance behind her, chanting:

"We got in a fight, we got in a fight."

"Stop that!" Serena protested, huffing and folding her arms. The dancing stopped and the two came hurrying over.

"I gave Malfoy a black eye, Phoebe almost broke her hand and Neville tried to take on Goyle single-handed! He's still out cold but Madam Pomftey says he'll be all right... eventually." Thomas reported excitedly.

"Everyone's waiting for you in the common room. There's a party." Phoebe added, doing another little dance. "Fred and George stole food from the kitchens." She added with a tone of admiration for her older friends.

"Never mind that now." Harry told them breathlessly. "Let's find an empty room, you wait 'til you hear this..."

They hurried to an empty classroom, any excitement replaced with weariness at Harry's urgent tone. He made sure Peeves wasn't inside before shutting the door behind them, then he told them what he'd seen and heard.

"So we were right, it is the Sorcerer's Stone and Snape's trying to force Quirrell to help him get it. He asked if he knew how to get past Fluffy and he said something about Quirrell's 'hocus pocus;. I reckon there are other things guarding the stone apart from Fluffy, loads of enchantments, probably, and Quirrell would have done some anti-Dark Arts spell that Snape needs to break through-."

"So, what you're saying is... the Stone's only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape?" Phoebe asked, eyebrow raised in disbelief. Serena buried her face in her hands and Thomas nodded glumly, like a man accepting his death sentence.

"It'll be gone by next Tuesday."


	15. How To Smuggle Your Dragon

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

 **A/N Longest chapter yet. I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

Quirrell, however, must have been braver than they'd thought. In the weeks that followed he did seem to be getting paler and thinner, but it didn't look as though he'd cracked yet.

Every time they passed the third-floor corridor, they would press their ears to the door to check that Fluffy was still growling inside. Serena, it seemed, was getting a bit attached to the beast, because she'd begun to talk to it through the door.

Snape was sweeping about in his usual bad temper, which surely meant that the Stone was still safe. Whenever Harry passed Quirrell these days he gave him an encouraging sort of smile. Phoebe had started telling people off for laughing at Quirrell's stutter.

To add another level of stress to the group, the exams were coming up. The teachers piled so much homework on them that the Easter holidays weren't nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones. Most of it was spent in the library, trying to ensure they would pass and be able to go onto their second year. Though they tried, their dedication tended to falter when they got bored.

One particular day, they were having trouble keeping their heads inside. It was the first really fine day they'd had in months. The sky was a clear, forget-me-not blue and there was a feeling in the air of summer coming. They had their books open in front of them, but it was hard to focus. Thomas had made a crossbow and arrow out of rubber bands, clips and a broken quill. Serena was sketching a three-headed dog in what was supposed to be her notebook for History of Magic. Phoebe had fallen asleep and was drooling over her notes. Until Thomas accidentally shot her with his make-shift arrow and she had to pull the piece of quill out of her arm with a groan, that is.

Harry, who was trying to look up 'Dittany' in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, didn't look up until he heard Serena say:

"Hagrid!"

Hagrid shuffled into view, hiding something behind his back. He looked very out of place in his moleskin overcoat.

"An' what're you lot up ter?" He sounded nervous and suspicious at the same time. "Yer not still lookin' fer Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?"

"Oh, we found out who he is." Phoebe waved off his question.

"And we know what that dog's guarding, it's a Sorcerer's St-." Harry started.

"Shhhh!" Hagrid looked around quickly to see if anyone was listening. "Don' go shoutin' about it, what's the matter with yeh?"

"There are a few things we wanted to ask you, as a matter of fact, about what's guarding the Stone apart from Fluffy-."

"SHHHH!" Hagrid said again. "Listen: come an' see me later, I'm not promisin' I'll tell yeh anythin', mind, but don' go rabbitin' about it in here, students aren' s'pposed ter know. They'll think I've told yeh-."

"See you later, then."

Hagrid shuffled off.

"What was he hiding behind his back?" Serena questioned.

"Do you think it had anything to do with the Stone?" Harry asked.

"I'll go check the section he was in." Thomas put his make-shift crossbow down and hurried off. He came back a minute later with a pile of books in his arms and slammed them down on the table, rattling everything else.

"Dragons!" He whispered urgently. "Hagrid was looking up stuff about dragons! Look at these: Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland; From Egg to Inferno, A Dragon Keeper's Guide."

"Hagrid's always wanted a dragon, he told me so the first time I ever met him." Harry informed him.

"But it's against our laws. Dragon breeding was outlawed by the Warlocks' Convention of 1709, everyone knows that. It's hard to stop Muggles from noticing us if we're keeping dragons in the back garden. People don't like dragons or werewolves." Thomas explained.

"So what on God's weird earth is Hagrid up to?" Phoebe questioned, raising her head lazily to peer around at them. No one could answer that.

* * *

When they knocked on the door of the gamekeeper's hut an hour later, they were surprised to see that all the curtains were closed. Hagrid called 'who is it?' before he let them in and then shut the door quickly behind them.

It was stifling hot inside. Even though it was such a warm day, there was a blazing fire in the grate. Hagrid made them tea and offered them stoat sandwiches, which they refused.

"So... Yeh wanted to ask me somethin'?"

"Yes." Harry agreed. There was no point beating around the bush. "We were wondering if you could tell us what's guarding the Sorcerer's Stone apart from Fluffy." Hagrid frowned at him.

"Course I can't." He said. "Number one, I don' know meself. Number two, yeh know too much already, so I wouldn' tell yeh if I could. That Stone's here fer a good reason. It was almost stolen outta Gringotts. I s'ppose yeh've worked that out an' all? Beats me how yeh even know abou' Fluffy."

"He almost ate us." Phoebe told him.

"We surprised him, that's all." Serena put in quickly.

"The point is, we just wanna know a little more. Morbid curiosity." Thomas told him.

"Come on, Hagrid." Harry wheedled. Phoebe stood up and went to stand next to Hagrid, the tall girl looking like an even younger child next to him.

"We only wondered who had done the guarding. We wondered who Dumbledore had trusted enough to help him handle this situation, apart from you." Hagrid's chest swelled at these last words. The others beamed at Phoebe.

"Well, I don' s'pose it could hurt ter tell yeh that... Let's see... He borrowed Fluffy from me... Then some o' the teachers did enchantments... Professor Sprout... Professor Flitwick... Professor McGonagall." He ticked them off on his fingers. "Professor Quirrell an' Dumbledore himself did somethin', o' course. Hang on, I've forgotten someone. Oh yeah, Professor Snape."

"Snape?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"Yeah. Yer not still on abou' that, are yeh? Look, Snape helped protect the Stone, he's not about ter steal it."

Harry disagreed. If Snape had been in on protecting the Stone, it must have been easy to find out how the other teachers had guarded it. He probably knew everything. Except, it seemed, Quirrell's spell and how to get past Fluffy.

"You're the only one who knows how to get past Fluffy, aren't you, Hagrid?" Harry asked him anxiously. "And you wouldn't tell anyone, would you? Not even one of the teachers?"

"Not a soul knows except me an' Dumbledore." Hagrid reported proudly.

"Well, that's something." Harry muttered. Louder, he added: "Hagrid, can we have a window open? I'm boiling."

"Can't, Harry, sorry." Harry noticed him glance at the fire. Harry looked at it, too.

"Hagrid... What's that?" But he already knew what it was. In the very heart of the fire, underneath the kettle, was a huge, black egg.

"Ah." Hagrid mumbled, fiddling nervously with his beard. "That's er..."

Everyone stepped closer to the fire and kneeled down to get a closer look.

"Where did you get it, Hagrid? Don't tell me there's a black market for dragons." Phoebe looked back at the giant.

"Won it, actually." Hagrid informed her. "Las' night. I was down in the village havin' a few drinks an' got into a game o' cards with a stranger. Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it, ter be honest."

"But what are you going to do with it when it's hatched and, you know, breathing fire and eating small animals?" Thomas asked.

"Well, I've bin doin' some readin'." Hagrid explained, pulling a large book from under his pillow. "Got this outta the library: Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit. It's a bit outta date, o' course, but it's all in here. Keep the egg in the fire, 'cause their mothers breathe on em, see, an' when it hatches, feed it on a bucket o' brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour. An' see here. How ter recognize diff'rent eggs. What I got there's a Norwegian Ridgeback. They're rare, them." He looked very pleased with himself, but the four just exchanged worried looks.

"Hagrid, you live in a wooden house." But Hagrid wasn't listening to them anymore. He was humming merrily as he stoked the fire.

So now they had something else to worry about: what might happen to Hagrid if anyone found out he was hiding an illegal dragon in his hut.

"Wonder what it's like not to have mental breakdowns every other day." Phoebe muttered, as evening after evening they struggled through all the extra homework they were getting.

Then, one breakfast time, Hedwig brought Harry another note from Hagrid. He had written only two words:

 _It's hatching._

Serena and Harry wanted to skip Herbology and go straight down to the hut. It was odd to have Thomas and Phoebe speaking as the voice of reason:

"We skip classes-." Thomas started.

"We fail an exam-." Phoebe continued.

"We don't get to go on to second year-."

"Something dastardly happens next year-."

"We don't go on that year either-."

"We're still taking Potions with Snape when we're thirty." Phoebe finished.

"How many times in our lives are we going to see a dragon hatching? It'll be little and cute and not deadly yet." Serena whined.

"Hagrid will probably take pictures like a proud momma-." Phoebe started.

"Shut up!" Harry whispered. Malfoy was only a few feet away and he had stopped dead to listen. How much had he heard? Harry didn't like the look on Malfoy's face at all.

When the bell sounded from the castle at the end of their lesson, the four of them dropped their trowels at once and hurried through the grounds to the edge of the forest. Hagrid greeted them, looking flushed and excited.

"It's nearly out." He ushered them inside.

The egg was lying on the table. There were deep cracks in it. Something was moving inside; a funny clicking noise was coming from it. They all drew their chairs up to the table and watched with bated breath. All at once there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped onto the table. It wasn't exactly pretty; Harry thought it looked like a crumpled, black umbrella. Its spiny wings were huge compared to its skinny jet body, it had a long snout with wide nostrils, the stubs of horns and bulging, orange eyes. It sneezed. A couple of sparks flew out of its snout.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid murmured. He reached out a hand to stroke the dragon's head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs. "Bless him, look, he knows his mommy!"

"Look at those eyes." Serena cooed.

"Look at those fangs." Thomas mocked.

"Hagrid, how fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, do you reckon?" Harry asked.

Hagrid was about to answer when the color suddenly drained from his face. He leapt to his feet and ran to the window. Everyone else scrambled to follow.

"What's the matter?"

"Someone was lookin' through the gap in the curtains. It's a kid. He's runnin' back up ter the school."

Phoebe and Harry bolted to the door and looked out. Even at a distance there was no mistaking him. Malfoy had seen the dragon.

* * *

Something about the smile lurking on Malfoy's face during the next week made the group very nervous. They spent most of their free time in Hagrid's darkened hut, trying to reason with him.

"Just let him go." Harry urged. "Set him free."

"I can't." Hagrid protested. "He's too little. He'd die."

They looked at the dragon. It had grown three times in length in just a week. Smoke kept furling out of its nostrils. Hagrid hadn't been doing his gamekeeping duties because the dragon was keeping him so busy. There were empty brandy bottles and chicken feathers all over the floor.

"I've decided to call him Norbert." Hagrid confided, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. "He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where's Mommy?"

"Is anyone sane anymore or are we the insane ones?" Thomas mused.

"Hagrid." Harry said loudly. "Give it two weeks and Norbert's going to be as long as your house. Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment." Hagrid bit his lip.

"I...I know I can't keep him forever, but I can't jus' dump him, I can't."

"Well, do know anyone else who would take a dragon?" Serena asked, stroking Fang's back and ignoring his drool that was pooling in her lap.

"Charlie." Phoebe said suddenly and everyone turned to look at her. "Fred and George's brother. He works with dragons. Maybe I can get a letter to him through them."

And in the end, Hagrid agreed that they could send an owl to Charlie to ask him.

* * *

The following week dragged by. Wednesday night found Harry and Phoebe sitting alone in the common room, long after everyone else had gone to bed. The clock on the wall had just chimed midnight when the portrait hole burst open. Thomas and Serena appeared out of nowhere as they pulled off Harry's invisibility cloak. He had been down at Hagrid's hut, helping him feed Norbert, who was now eating dead rats by the crate.

"It bit me!" Thomas cried, showing them his hand, which was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief. "It went for the rat and got my hand. My hand is not a rat! And when it bit me he told me off for frightening it. And when I left, he was singing it a lullaby." He complained loudly and they all shushed him.

An owl tapped at the window. Phoebe hurried over and grabbed the letter.

"It's from Charlie." She reported and ran over to read it with the others.

 _Dear Fred and George's Friends,_

 _I'd be glad to take the Norwegian Ridgeback, but it won't be easy getting him here. I think the best thing will be to send him over with some friends of mine who are coming to visit me next week._

 _Trouble is, they mustn't be seen carrying an illegal dragon. Could you get the Ridgeback up the tallest tower at midnight on Saturday? They can meet you there and take him away while it's still dark._

 _Send me an answer as soon as possible._

 _Sincerely, Charlie_

They looked at one another.

"We've got the invisibility cloak." Harry reminded them. "It shouldn't be too difficult. I think the cloaks big enough to cover two of us and Norbert. We'll sneak him through the castle and up to the tower." It was a mark of how bad the last week had been that the other three agreed with him. Anything to get rid of Norbert. And Malfoy.

There was a hitch. By the next morning, Thomas's bitten hand had swollen to twice its usual size. He didn't know whether it was safe to go to Madam Pomfrey. Would she recognize a dragon bite? By the afternoon, though, he had no choice. The cut had turned a nasty shade of green. It looked as if cute little Norbert was venomous.

Harry, Phoebe and Serena rushed up to the hospital wing at the end of the day to find Thomas in a terrible state in bed.

"Malfoy came by. Threatened to tell Madam Pomfrey what really bit me." He reported.

"Did she know already?" Serena asked worriedly. Thomas held up his swollen, puss-leaking hand.

"Well, she didn't believe it was a cat."

"Why would you say it was a cat?" Harry asked.

"Because I panicked." Thomas admitted. "But I think she's see enough weird things that she doesn't even think twice. We're good." He added.

"It'll all be over at midnight on Saturday, anyway." Harry assured everyone. Thomas bolted up with wide eyes. He patted all over his robes and the sank down with a moan.

"Mates... I have made a terrible mistake."

"What did you do?"

"The letter was in my pocket."

"Was?" Serena repeated in a worried squeak.

"He must've grabbed it."

"He pick pocketed you?" Harry asked. "How would he know how to-?"

"That weasel." Phoebe cursed. "We play spies _once_ when we were kids and he uses it against me years later."

"Once?"

"Okay, fine. A lot. We were kids. I thought he was nice." Phoebe explained reluctantly.

No one got get a chance to answer. Madam Pomfrey came over at that moment and made them leave, saying Thomas needed to get into his pajamas and prepare for a long night.

"It's too late to change the plan now." Harry told the girls as they hurried back towards Gryffindor tower. "We haven't got time to send Charlie another owl, and this could be our only chance to get rid of Norbert. We'll have to risk it. And we have got the invisibility cloak, Malfoy doesn't know about that."

They found Fang, the boar-hound, sitting outside with a bandaged tail when they went to tell Hagrid, who opened a window to talk to them.

"I won't let you in." He puffed. "Norbert's at a tricky stage. Nothin' I can't handle."

When they told him about Charlie's letter, his eyes filled with tears, although that might have been because Norbert had just bitten him on the leg.

"Aargh! It's all right, he only got my boot... jus' playin'... he's only a baby, after all." The baby banged its tail on the wall, making the windows rattle.

The trio walked back to the castle feeling Saturday couldn't come quickly enough. They would have felt sorry for Hagrid when the time came for him to say good-bye to Norbert if they hadn't been so worried about what they had to do. It was a very dark, cloudy night and Phoebe and Harry were a bit late arriving at Hagrid's hut because they'd had to wait for Peeves to get out of their way in the entrance hall, where he'd been playing tennis against the wall. Hagrid had Norbert packed and ready in a large crate.

"He's got lots o' rats an' some brandy fer the journey." Hagrid told them in a muffled voice. "An' I've packed his teddy bear in case he gets lonely." From inside the crate came ripping noises that sounded to Harry as though the teddy was having his head torn off.

"Bye-bye, Norbert!" Hagrid sobbed as Harry and Phoebe covered the crate with the invisibility cloak and stepped underneath it themselves. "Mommy will never forget you!"

How they managed to get the crate back up to the castle, they never knew. Midnight ticked nearer as they heaved Norbert up the marble staircase in the entrance hall and along the dark corridors. Up another staircase, then another... Even one of Harry's shortcuts didn't make the work much easier.

"Nearly there!" Harry panted as they reached the corridor beneath the tallest tower. Phoebe was throwing her back into, trying to pull it up the stairs. Harry pushed it from the other side and they had to keep readjusting the cloak to cover all of them.

Then a sudden movement ahead of them made them stop. Forgetting that they were already invisible, they shrank into the shadows, staring at the dark outlines of two people grappling with each other ten feet away.

A lamp flared. Professor McGonagall, in a tartan bathrobe and a hair net, had Malfoy by the ear.

"Detention!" She shouted. "And twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night, how dare you-."

"You don't understand, Professor. Harry Potter and Phoebe Black are coming. They've got a dragon!"

"What utter rubbish! How dare you tell such lies! Come on. I shall see Professor Snape about you, Malfoy!"

The steep spiral staircase up to the top of the tower seemed the easiest thing in the world after that. Not until they'd stepped out into the cold night air did they throw off the cloak, glad to be able to breathe properly again.

Phoebe did a sort of jig.

"Malfoy thought he was on top. Now he's at the bottom!" She grabbed Harry's hands and he held her weight while she did a dip. She straightened up and let out a laugh and he joined her. Chuckling about Malfoy, they waited, Norbert thrashing about in his crate.

About ten minutes later, four broomsticks came swooping down out of the darkness. Charlie's friends were a cheery lot. The three men had tattoos and long hair, but wide smiles and kind eyes. The one girl of the group wore punk clothes and had spiky pink hair. She was clumsy, but energetic and eager to get started.

They showed Harry and Phoebe the harness they'd rigged up, so they could suspend Norbert between them. They all helped buckle Norbert safely into it, the group showing no fear of the baby dragon. The pink haired girl, who they learned went by Tonks, skipped back over to them and told them, in a very fond tone, they were absolutely bonkers for doing this. Then Harry and Phoebe shook hands with the others and thanked them very much.

At last, Norbert was going... going... gone.

They slipped back down the spiral staircase, their hearts as light as their hands, now that Norbert was off them. No more dragon. Malfoy in detention. What could spoil their happiness?

The answer to that was waiting at the foot of the stairs. As they stepped into the corridor, Filch's face loomed suddenly out of the darkness.

"Well, well, well." He whispered. "We are in trouble."

They'd left the invisibility cloak on top of the tower.


	16. From Bad To Worse

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

* * *

Things couldn't have been worse.

Filch took them down to Professor McGonagall's study on the first floor, where they sat and waited without saying a word to each other. Phoebe was looking at the window like an escape route. Excuses, alibis and wild cover- up stories chased each other around Harry's brain, each more feeble than the last. He couldn't see how they were going to get out of trouble this time. They were cornered. How could they have been so stupid as to forget the cloak? There was no reason on earth that Professor McGonagall would accept for their being out of bed and creeping around the school in the dead of night, let alone being up the tallest astronomy tower, which was out-of-bounds except for classes. Add Norbert and the invisibility cloak and they might as well be packing their bags already. Harry thought that things couldn't have been worse.

He was wrong. When Professor McGonagall appeared, she was leading Neville.

"Harry, Phoebe!" Neville burst out the moment he saw the other two. "I was trying to find you to warn you, I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you, he said you had a drag-." Harry and Phoebe shook their heads violently to shut Neville up, but Professor McGonagall had seen. She looked more likely to breathe fire than Norbert as she towered over the three of them.

"I would never have believed it of any of you. Mr. Filch says you were up in the astronomy tower. It's one o'clock in the morning. Explain yourselves." No one did. "I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on. It doesn't take a genius to work it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble. I've already caught him. I suppose you think it's funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it, too?"

Harry caught Neville's eye and tried to tell him without words that this wasn't true, because Neville was looking stunned and hurt. Poor, blundering Neville... Harry knew what it must have cost him to try and find them in the dark, to warn them.

"I'm disgusted. Four students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing since-." She stopped abruptly before shaking her head and beginning again: "Ms. Black, I had faith you would do better. Consider me very disappointed." Phoebe ducked her head, blinking fast as though she were about to cry. "As for you, Mr. Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. All three of you will receive detentions. Yes, you too, Mr. Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it's very dangerous. And fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor."

"Fifty?" Harry gasped. They would lose the lead, the lead he'd won in the last Quidditch match.

"Fifty points _each._ " Professor McGonagall told them, breathing heavily through her long, pointed nose.

"Professor, please, you can't-."

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students."

A hundred and fifty points lost. That put Gryffindor in last place. In one night, they'd ruined any chance Gryffindor had had for the house cup. Harry felt as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. How could they ever make up for this? Harry didn't sleep all night. He could hear Neville sobbing into his pillow for what seemed like hours. Harry couldn't think of anything to say to comfort him. He knew Neville, like himself, was dreading the dawn. What would happen when the rest of Gryffindor found out what they'd done?

At first, Gryffindors passing the giant hourglasses that recorded the house points the next day thought there'd been a mistake. How could they suddenly have a hundred and fifty points fewer than yesterday? And then the story started to spread: Harry Potter, the famous Harry Potter, their hero of two Quidditch matches, had lost them all those points. Him, the violent little Black girl and some fumbling moron.

From being one of the most popular and admired people at the school, Harry was suddenly the most hated. Even Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs turned on him, because everyone had been longing to see Slytherin lose the house cup.

Everywhere Harry went, people pointed and didn't trouble to lower their voices as they insulted him. Slytherins, on the other hand, clapped as he walked past them, whistling and cheering:

"Thanks Potter, we owe you one!"

It was a bit late to repair the damage, but Harry swore to himself not to meddle in things that weren't his business from now on. He'd had it with sneaking around and spying. He felt so ashamed of himself that he went to Wood and offered to resign from the Quidditch team.

"Resign?" Wood thundered. "What good'll that do? How are we going to get any points back if we can't win at Quidditch?"

But even Quidditch had lost its fun. The rest of the team wouldn't speak to Harry during practice, and if they had to speak about him, they called him 'the Seeker'.

Phoebe and Neville were suffering, too. Nobody would speak to Neville and Phoebe got more comments about her 'bad family' than ever.

Harry was almost glad that the exams weren't far away. All the studying he had to do kept his mind off his misery. He, Thomas, Phoebe and Serena kept to themselves, working late into the night, trying to remember the ingredients in complicated potions, learn charms and spells by heart, memorize the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions...

Then, about a week before the exams were due to start, Harry's new resolution not to interfere in anything that didn't concern him was put to an unexpected test. Walking back from the library on his own one afternoon, he heard somebody whimpering from a classroom up ahead. As he drew closer, he heard Quirrell's voice.

"No... no... Not again, please..." It sounded as though someone was threatening him. Harry moved closer. "All right... all right..." He heard Quirrell sob.

The next second, Quirrell came hurrying out of the classroom straightening his turban. He was pale and looked as though he was about to cry. He strode out of sight; Harry didn't think Quirrell had even noticed him. He waited until Quirrell's footsteps had disappeared, then peered into the classroom. It was empty, but a door stood ajar at the other end. Harry was halfway toward it before he remembered what he'd promised himself about not meddling. All the same, he'd have gambled twelve Sorcerer's Stones that Snape had just left the room. From what Harry had just heard, Snape would be walking with a new spring in his step; Quirrell seemed to have given in at last.

Harry went back to the library, where the other three were sullenly studying. Harry told them what he'd heard.

"Snape's done it, then!" Phoebe slammed her book shut. "He'll get the dumb stone because our teacher couldn't keep his mouth shut." She was in a horrid mood, as she always seemed to be since their epic failure and points loss.

"There's still Fluffy, though." Serena reminded them, trying to sound hopeful. She failed.

"So what do we do? Set Snape on fire again? Maybe a nice poisoned cake for him?" Thomas suggested, playing with his quill.

"Let's go to the other teachers." Serena suggested urgently.

"Yeah, because the adults of this school really like us and are all completely trustworthy." Phoebe agreed sarcastically.

"Besides, we've got no proof!" Harry pointed out. "Quirrell's too scared to back us up. Snape's only got to say he doesn't know how the troll got in at Halloween and that he was nowhere near the third floor. Who do you think they'll believe, him or us? It's not exactly a secret we hate him. Dumbledore'll think we made it up to get him sacked. Filch wouldn't help us if his life depended on it, he's too friendly with Snape and the more students get thrown out, the better, he'll think. And don't forget, we're not supposed to know about the Stone or Fluffy. That'll take a lot of explaining."

"If we just go-." Thomas started.

"No." Harry told them flatly. "We've done enough poking around." He pulled a map of Jupiter toward him and started to learn the names of its moons.

"It's adorable that you think you're in charge of all of us. Come on, Tommy-boy, let's go make sure Fluffy's still growling." Phoebe suggested. She and Thomas got up and hurried off. Serena looked at Harry hopelessly but then scrambled up and ran to follow them, leaving Harry feeling miserable by himself.

* * *

The following morning, notes were delivered to Harry, Phoebe, and Neville at the breakfast table. They were all the same:

 _Your detention will take place at eleven o'clock tonight. Meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall._

 _Professor McGonagall_

Harry had forgotten they still had detentions to do in the furor over the points they'd lost. They went through the day dreading nightfall.

At eleven o'clock that night, they said good-bye to Thomas and Serena in the common room and went down to the entrance hall with Neville. Filch was already there. And so was Malfoy. Harry had also forgotten that Malfoy had gotten a detention, too.

"Follow me." Filch told them, lighting a lamp and leading them outside. "I bet you'll think twice about breaking a school rule again, won't you, eh? Oh yes... hard work and pain are the best teachers if you ask me... It's just a pity they let the old punishments die out... hang you by your wrists from the ceiling for a few days, I've got the chains still in my office, keep 'em well oiled in case they're ever needed... Right, off we go, and don't think of running off, now, it'll be worse for you if you do."

They marched off across the dark grounds. Neville kept sniffing. Harry wondered what their punishment was going to be. It must be something really horrible or Filch wouldn't be sounding so delighted.

The moon was bright, but clouds scudding across it kept throwing them into darkness. Ahead, Harry could see the lighted windows of Hagrid's hut. Then they heard a distant shout.

"Is that you, Filch? Hurry up, I want ter get started." Harry's heart rose; if they were going to be working with Hagrid it wouldn't be so bad. His relief must have showed in his face, because Filch spoke up again:

"I suppose you think you'll be enjoying yourself with that oaf? Well, think again, boy. It's into the forest you're going and I'm much mistaken if you'll all come out in one piece."

At this, Neville let out a little moan and Malfoy stopped dead in his tracks.

"The forest?" He repeated and he didn't sound quite as cool as usual. "We can't go in there at night there's all sorts of things in there. Werewolves, I heard." Neville clutched the sleeve of Harry's robe and made a choking noise.

"That's your problem, isn't it?" Filch questioned, his voice cracking with glee. "Should've thought of them werewolves before you got in trouble, shouldn't you?"

Hagrid came striding toward them out of the dark, Fang at his heel. He was carrying his large crossbow, and a quiver of arrows hung over his shoulder.

"Abou' time." He said. "I bin waitin' fer half an hour already. All right, Harry, Phoebe?"

"I shouldn't be too friendly to them, Hagrid." Filch said coldly, they're here to be punished, after all."

"That's why yer late, is it?" Hagrid asked, frowning at Filch. "Bin lecturin' them, eh? 'Snot your place ter do that. Yeh've done yer bit, I'll take over from here."

"I'll be back at dawn for what's left of them." With that, Filch turned and started back toward the castle, his lamp bobbing away in the darkness.

Malfoy now turned to Hagrid.

"I'm not going in that forest." He said and Harry was pleased to hear the note of panic in his voice.

"Yeh are if yeh want ter stay at Hogwarts." Hagrid told him fiercely. "Yeh've done wrong an' now yehve got ter pay fer it."

"But this is servant stuff, it's not for students to do. I thought we'd be copying lines or something, if my father knew I was doing this-."

"He'd tell yer that's how it is at Hogwarts." Hagrid growled. "Copyin' lines! What good's that ter anyone? Yeh'll do summat useful or Yeh'll get out. If yeh think yer father'd rather you were expelled, then get back off ter the castle an' pack. Go on." Malfoy didn't move. He looked at Hagrid furiously, but then dropped his gaze.

"My father will hear about this." Phoebe mocked and Malfoy hit at her. She hit his shoulder back and then Hagrid was pulling them apart before a full on fist-fight started.

"There'll be no fightin'." He scolded. He started at them for a moment to make sure they didn't start back up again and then continued: "Right then. Now, listen carefully, 'cause it's dangerous what we're gonna do tonight, an' I don' want no one takin' risks. Follow me over here a moment."

He led them to the very edge of the forest. Holding his lamp up high, he pointed down a narrow, winding earth track that disappeared into the thick black trees. A light breeze lifted their hair as they looked into the forest.

"Look there. See that stuff shinin' on the ground? Silvery stuff? That's unicorn blood. There's a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat. This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We're gonna try an' find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery."

"And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?" Malfoy asked, unable to keep the fear out of his voice.

"There's nothin' that lives in the forest that'll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang." Hagrid assured them. "An' keep ter the path. Right, now, we're gonna split inter two parties an' follow the trail in diff'rent directions. There's blood all over the place, it must've bin staggerin' around since last night at least."

"I want Fang." Malfoy said quickly, looking at Fang's long teeth.

"All right, but I warn yeh, he's a coward. So me, Phoebe, an' Neville'll go one way an' Draco, Harry, an' Fang'll go the other. Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, we'll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an' practice now. That's it. An' if anyone gets in trouble, send up red sparks, an' we'll all come an' find yeh. So, be careful. Let's go."

And they set off.


	17. Into Darkness

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

 **A/N Two chapters at once, because I felt like the last one didn't have much going on. This one is based on the corresponding chapter in the books, but I condensed it because I felt like the original chapter (in the Harry Potter book) kind of dragged on. So I guess this is more based on the movie's version of events than the book, which might happen more in the future.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoy the double update. Please review and tell me what you think (I love getting reviews).**

* * *

The forest was black and silent. Fang panted as he walked along, keeping with Malfoy and Harry. The dog seemed to be the happiest of the group. They walked for nearly half an hour, deeper and deeper into the forest, until the path became almost impossible to follow because the trees were so thick.

Harry realized the occasion speck of blood was getting less and less occasional. And less of a speck. There were splashes on the roots of a tree, as though the poor creature had been thrashing around in pain close by. Harry could see a clearing ahead, through the tangled branches of an ancient oak.

"Look." He murmured, holding out his arm to stop Malfoy. Something bright white was gleaming on the ground. They inched closer. It was the unicorn all right and it was dead.

Harry had never seen anything so beautiful and sad. Its long, slender legs were stuck out at odd angles where it had fallen and its mane was spread pearly-white on the dark leaves. Harry had taken one step toward it when a slithering sound made him freeze where he stood. A bush on the edge of the clearing quivered...

Then, out of the shadows, a hooded figure came crawling across the ground like some stalking beast. Harry, Malfoy, and Fang stood transfixed. The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the wound in the animal's side, and began to drink its blood.

"AAAAAAAAAAH!" Malfoy let out a terrible scream and bolted. So did Fang.

The hooded figure raised its head and looked right at Harry. Unicorn blood was dribbling down its front. It got to its feet and came swiftly toward Harry. He couldn't move for fear. Then a pain like he'd never felt before pierced his head; it was as though his scar were on fire. Half blinded, he staggered backward.

He heard hooves behind him, galloping, and something jumped clean over Harry, charging at the figure. The pain in Harry's head was so bad he fell to his knees. It took a minute or two to pass. When he looked up, the figure had gone.

A half-man, half-horse creature stood over him. Harry stared at the centaur.

"Are you all right?" The centaur asked, offering him a hand. Still shaking slightly, Harry took it and let the centaur pull him to his feet.

"Yes... thank you... what was that?" The centaur didn't answer. He had astonishingly blue eyes, like pale sapphires. He looked carefully at Harry, his eyes lingering on the scar that stood out, livid, on Harry's forehead.

"You are the Potter boy. You had better get back to Hagrid. The forest is not safe at this time. Especially for you. Can you ride? It will be quicker this way. My name is Firenze." He added, as he lowered himself on to his front legs so that Harry could clamber onto his back.

There was suddenly a sound of more galloping from the other side of the clearing. Two more centaur came bursting through the trees, their flanks heaving and sweaty.

"Firenze!" One thundered. "What are you doing? You have a human on your back! Have you no shame? Are you a common mule?"

"Do you realize who this is? This is the Potter boy. The quicker he leaves this forest, the better."

"What have you been telling him? Remember, Firenze, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?"

"I'm sure Firenze thought he was acting for the best." The second one said in a gloomy voice. The first kicked his back legs in anger.

"For the best! What is that to do with us? Centaurs are concerned with what has been foretold! It is not our business to run around like donkeys after stray humans in our forest!" Firenze suddenly reared on to his hind legs in anger, so that Harry had to grab his shoulders to stay on.

"Do you not see that unicorn?" Firenze bellowed. "Do you not understand why it was killed? Or have the planets not let you in on that secret? I set myself against what is lurking in this forest, Bane, yes, with humans alongside me if I must." And Firenze whisked around; with Harry clutching on as best he could, they plunged off into the trees, leaving the other behind them. Harry didn't have a clue what was going on.

"Why's Bane so angry?" He asked. "What was that thing you saved me from, anyway?" Firenze slowed to a walk, warned Harry to keep his head bowed in case of low-hanging branches, but did not answer Harry's question.

They made their way through the trees in silence for so long that Harry thought Firenze didn't want to talk to him anymore. They were passing through a particularly dense patch of trees, however, when Firenze suddenly stopped.

"Harry Potter, do you know what unicorn blood is used for?"

"No." Harry admitted, startled by the odd question. "We've only used the horn and tail hair in Potions."

"That is because it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn. Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips." Harry stared at the back of Firenze's head, which was dappled silver in the moonlight.

"But who'd be that desperate?" He wondered aloud. "If you're going to be cursed forever, death is better, isn't it?"

"It is." Firenze agreed. "Unless all you need is to stay alive long enough to drink something else. Something that will bring you back to full strength and power. Something that will mean you can never die. Mr. Potter, do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?"

"The Sorcerer's Stone! Of course. The Elixir of Life! But I don't understand who-."

"Can you think of nobody who has waited many years to return to power, who has clung to life, awaiting their chance?"

It was as though an iron fist had clenched suddenly around Harry's heart. Over the rustling of the trees, he seemed to hear once more what Hagrid had told him on the night they had met:

" _Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die."_

"Do you mean." Harry croaked. "That was Vol-."

"Harry! Harry, are you all right?" Phoebe was sprinting toward them down the path, her black hair flying behind her like a curtain. Hagrid was puffing along behind her, with Malfoy, Neville and Fang in the distance.

"I'm fine." Harry told her, hardly knowing what he was saying. "The unicorn's dead, Hagrid, it's in that clearing back there."

"This is where I leave you." Firenze murmured as Hagrid hurried off to examine the unicorn. "You are safe now."

Harry slid off his back; Phoebe grabbed him to steady him. He felt like he was going to be sick. Fang, Neville and Malfoy caught up to them. Fang started slobbering all over Harry while Neville started at Firenze and Malfoy sulked in the background.

"Good luck, Harry Potter." Firenze turned and cantered back into the depths of the forest, leaving Harry shivering behind him.

* * *

Thomas and Serena had fallen asleep in the dark common room, waiting for them to return. Phoebe slapped Thomas to wake him while Harry gave Serena a somewhat frantic shake. Both were awake immediately and Harry started telling them what had happened in the forest.

Harry couldn't sit down. He paced up and down in front of the fire. He was still shaking.

"Snape wants the stone for Voldemort... and Voldemort's waiting in the forest... and all this time we thought Snape just wanted to get rich..."

"Stop saying the name!" Serena told him in a terrified whisper, as if he thought Voldemort could hear them. Harry wasn't listening.

"Firenze saved me, but he shouldn't have done so... Bane was furious... he was talking about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen... They must show that Voldemort's coming back... Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me... I suppose that's written in the stars as well."

"Will you stop saying the name?!" Serena squeaked, pulling her legs up to her chest.

"So all I've got to wait for now is Snape to steal the Stone." Harry went on feverishly. "Then Voldemort will be able to come and finish me off... Well, I suppose Bane'll be happy."

Everyone sat in silence for a while, unsure of what there was to say. Phoebe kept raking her hands through her hair. Thomas's foot kept tapping against the floor until Serena hissed at him to stop since it was making her more nervous.

"Hogwarts is supposed to be the safest place there is because of Dumbledore." Serena reminded Harry finally.

"Is it safe enough?" Phoebe challenged.

"Look, if You-Know-Who wants to get to Harry, he's gonna have to get through us." Thomas put in. "And I know some karate skills. Hi-yah!" He kicked out, caught the edge a table and went down, cursing and holding his toes.

The sky had turned light before they stopped talking. They went to bed exhausted, their throats sore. But the night's surprises weren't over. When Harry pulled back his sheets, he found his invisibility cloak folded neatly underneath them. There was a note pinned to it:

 _Just in case._


	18. A Desperate Plan

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

* * *

In years to come, Harry would never quite remember how he had managed to get through his exams when he half expected Voldemort to come bursting through the door at any moment. Yet the days crept by and there could be no doubt that Fluffy was still alive and well behind the locked door.

It was sweltering hot, especially in the large classroom where they did their written papers. They had been given special, new quills for the exams, which had been bewitched with an Anti-Cheating spell. They had practical exams as well.

Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class to see if they could make a pineapple tapdance across a desk. Professor McGonagall watched them turn a mouse into a snuffbox. Points were given for how pretty the snuffbox was, but taken away if it had whiskers. Snape made them all nervous, breathing down their necks while they tried to remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion. Harry did the best he could, trying to ignore the stabbing pains in his forehead, which had been bothering him ever since his trip into the forest.

Neville thought Harry had a bad case of exam nerves because Harry couldn't sleep, but the truth was that Harry kept being woken by his old nightmare, except that it was now worse than ever because there was a hooded figure dripping blood in it.

Their very last exam was History of Magic. One hour of answering questions about batty old wizards who'd invented self-stirring cauldrons and they'd be free, free for a whole wonderful week until their exam results came out. When the ghost of Professor Binns told them to put down their quills and roll up their parchment, Harry couldn't help cheering with the rest.

They wandered down to the lake and flopped under a tree. The Weasley twins and Lee Jordan were tickling the tentacles of a giant squid, which was basking in the warm shallows.

"It's over!" Thomas sang joyfully. He and Phoebe slapped high-fives and lied down against the cool grass.

Harry was rubbing his forehead.

"I wish I knew what this means!" He burst out angrily. "My scar keeps hurting. It's happened before, but never as often as this."

"Go to Madam Pomfrey. She may have something for it." Serena suggested worriedly.

"I'm not ill. I think it's a warning... it means danger's coming..."

"Does it tell you Timmy is the well too?" Phoebe scoffed and Harry couldn't help but glare at her.

"Just forget about the fancy rock for a second. Snape may not even know how to get past Fluffy yet. He nearly had his leg ripped off once, he's not going to try it again in a hurry. And Neville will turn into England's Next Top Model before Hagrid lets Dumbledore down." Thomas assured him.

Harry nodded, but he couldn't shake off a lurking feeling that there was something he'd forgotten to do, something important. He watched an owl flutter toward the school across the bright blue sky, a note clamped in its mouth. Hagrid was the only one who ever sent him letters. Hagrid would never betray Dumbledore. Hagrid would never tell anyone how to get past Fluffy... never... but...

Harry suddenly jumped to his feet.

"Where're you going?" Thomas asked sleepily; it appeared Phoebe was actually asleep on the grass.

"I've just thought of something." Harry told them. He had turned white. "We've got to go and see Hagrid, now." He ran towards the familiar hut.

Thomas and Serena woke Phoebe up and the three sprinted after him. Phoebe caught up to him first and kept pace while the others panted along behind them. As they all got within hearing range again, Harry continued:

"Don't you think it's a bit odd that what Hagrid wants more than anything else is a dragon, and a stranger turns up who just happens to have an egg in his pocket? How many people wander around with dragon eggs if it's against wizard law? Lucky they found Hagrid, don't you think? Why didn't I see it before?"

Hagrid was sitting in an armchair outside his house; his trousers and sleeves were rolled up and he was shelling peas into a large bowl.

"Hullo. Finished yer exams? Got time fer a drink?"

"Yes, please." Serena panted, but Harry cut her off.

"No, we're in a hurry. Hagrid, I've got to ask you something. You know that night you won Norbert? What did the stranger you were playing cards with look like?"

"Dunno." Hagrid responded casually. "He wouldn' take his cloak off." He saw the four of them look stunned and raised his eyebrows. "It's not that unusual, yeh get a lot o' funny folk in the Hog's Head. That's the pub down in the village. Mighta bin a dragon dealer, mightn' he? I never saw his face, he kept his hood up."

Harry sank down next to the bowl of peas. Serena collapsed and leaned against him, but Phoebe and Thomas remained upright, staring at their friend.

"What did you talk to him about, Hagrid? Did you mention Hogwarts at all?" Harry questioned.

"Mighta come up." Hagrid frowned as he tried to remember. "Yeah... he asked what I did, an' I told him I was gamekeeper here... He asked a bit about the sorta creatures I took after... so I told him... an' I said what I'd always really wanted was a dragon... an' then... I can' remember too well, 'cause he kept buyin' me drinks... Let's see... yeah, then he said he had the dragon egg an' we could play cards fer it if I wanted... but he had ter be sure I could handle it, he didn' want it ter go ter any old home... So I told him, after Fluffy, a dragon would be easy..."

"And did he... did he seem interested in Fluffy?" Harry asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

"Well, yeah, how many three-headed dogs d'yeh meet, even around Hogwarts? So I told him, Fluffy's a piece o' cake if yeh know how to calm him down, jus' play him a bit o' music an' he'll go straight off ter sleep-." Hagrid suddenly looked horrified. "I shouldn'ta told yeh that! Forget I said it! Hey! Where're yeh goin'?"

Harry, Phoebe, Serena and Thomas didn't speak to each other at all until they came to a screeching halt in the entrance hall, which seemed very cold and gloomy after the grounds.

"We've got to go to Dumbledore. Hagrid told that stranger how to get past Fluffy, and it was either Snape or Voldemort under that cloak! It must've been easy, once he'd got Hagrid drunk. Where's Dumbledore's office?" Harry panted. They looked around, as if hoping to see a sign pointing them in the right direction. They had never been told where Dumbledore lived, nor did they know anyone who had been sent to see him.

"We can ask a teacher-." Serena began, but a voice suddenly rang across the hall.

"What are you four doing inside?" It was Professor McGonagall, carrying a large pile of books.

"We want to see Professor Dumbledore." Phoebe informed her, rather bravely.

"See Professor Dumbledore?" Professor McGonagall repeated, as though this was a very fishy thing to want to do. "Why?"

Harry swallowed.

"It's sort of secret." He said, but he wished at once he hadn't, because Professor McGonagall's nostrils flared.

"Professor Dumbledore left ten minutes ago." She said coldly. "He received an urgent owl from the Ministry of Magic and flew off for London at once."

"He's gone? Now?" Harry asked frantically.

"Professor Dumbledore is a very great wizard, Potter, he has many demands on his time."

"But this is important."

"Something you have to say is more important than the Ministry of Magic, Potter."

"Look." Harry told her, throwing caution to the winds. "Professor, it's about the Sorcerer's tone-."

Whatever Professor McGonagall had expected, it wasn't that. The books she was carrying tumbled out of her arms. One of them hit Thomas's foot, still injured form his karate kick to the table in the common room, and he let out a yelp of pain and started hopping around. Professor McGonagall didn't move to pick up the books, or even look at Thomas.

"How do you know-?" She spluttered.

"Professor, I think... I know that Sn... that someone's going to try and steal the Stone. I've got to talk to Professor Dumbledore." Harry insisted. She eyed him with a mixture of shock and suspicion.

"Professor Dumbledore will be back tomorrow." She said finally. "I don't know how you found out about the Stone, but rest assured, no one can possibly steal it, it's too well protected."

"But Professor-."

"Potter, I know what I'm talking about." She said shortly. She bent down and gathered up the fallen books. "I suggest you all go back outside and enjoy the sunshine."

But they didn't.

"It's tonight." Harry said, once he was sure Professor McGonagall was out of earshot. "Snape's going through the trapdoor tonight. He's found out everything he needs, and now he's got Dumbledore out of the way. He sent that note, I bet the Ministry of Magic will get a real shock when Dumbledore turns up."

"But, mate, how do we-?" Thomas started. Phoebe slapped him as Serena gasped. Harry and Thomas wheeled round. Snape was standing there.

"Good afternoon." He said smoothly. They stared at him. "You shouldn't be inside on a day like this," He had an odd, twisted smile on his face.

"We were-." Harry began, without any idea what he was going to say.

"You want to be more careful." Snape interrupted. "Hanging around like this, people will think you're up to something. And Gryffindor really can't afford to lose any more points, can it?" Harry flushed.

They turned to go outside, but Snape called them back.

"Be warned, Potter. Any more nighttime wanderings and I will personally make sure you are expelled. Good day to you." He strode off in the direction of the staff-room.

Out on the stone steps, Harry turned to the others.

"Right, here's what we've got to do." He whispered urgently. "One of us has got to keep an eye on Snape. Wait outside the staff room and follow him if he leaves it."

"I'll do it." Phoebe offered immediately and ran off.

"And we'd better stay outside the third-floor corridor." Harry added to Thomas and Serena.

But that part of the plan didn't work. No sooner had they reached the door separating Fluffy from the rest of the school than Professor McGonagall turned up again. That time, she lost her temper.

"I suppose you think you're harder to get past than a pack of enchantments!" She stormed. "Enough of this nonsense! If I hear you've come anywhere near here again, I'll take another fifty points from Gryffindor! Yes, Potter, from my own house!"

With no other choice, the three went to back to the Gryffindor common room. Phoebe stormed in just minutes later

"I ran into a herd of Slytherin's passing by the staff-room. They distracted me with their hair gel and blood traitor insults." She explained in a huff. "I lost Snape."

"Well, that's it then, isn't it?" Harry asked. The others stared at him. He was pale and his eyes were glittering. "I'm going out of here tonight and I'm going to try and get to the Stone first."

"Yes, because an eleven year old is definitely better at breaking through magical enchantments than a professor." Phoebe agreed sarcastically.

"You'll get hurt. Or worse. Killed." Serena emphasized the last word, trying to drill it into his brain.

"Being the supreme lords of the bathroom is one thing, mate, but I don't think that we can just waltz in and take the stone. Not if we want to keep all our limbs attached or our brains wired properly so we don't have to wear helmets and drool cups." Thomas stuck his tongue out and acted like a zombie for a moment to emphasis his own point.

"You can't. It's too dangerous-." Serena started again, ignoring their friend's antics.

"SO WHAT?" Harry shouted and even Phoebe looked surprised at his outburst. "Don't you understand? If Snape gets hold of the Stone, Voldemort's coming back! Haven't you heard what it was like when he was trying to take over? I'm going through that trapdoor tonight and nothing you can say is going to stop me! Voldemort killed my parents, remember?" He glared at them, waiting for them to respond.

"You're right Harry." Serena told him in a small voice, chin trembling slightly.

"I'll use the invisibility cloak. It's just lucky I got it back."

"Will it cover all four of us? We might need to get creative about it." Thomas said thoughtfully.

"All... all four of us?" Harry stuttered.

"What? You think you're going down there alone?" Phoebe scoffed.

"We're your friends." Serena reminded him gently.

"And friends don't let friends do stupid things alone." Thomas agreed wholeheartedly.

Harry smiled at all of them. They were crazy, each in their own way. But, somehow, he thought that only made them better friends to have in situations like the ones he faced...


	19. Down The Rabbit Hole

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

* * *

After dinner the four of them sat nervously apart in the common room. No one really bothered them; most were too upset with Harry and Phoebe still. Serena had Monet on her lap, petting him and staring blankly at the fire without really seeing it. Phoebe talked with Fred and George, but, even from a distance, Harry could tell her heart wasn't really in their jokes. Thomas and Neville compared their exam notes, but Neville seemed suspicious of Thomas's lack of concentration. Harry just sat there, trying not to draw attention to himself as he thought about what they had to do.

Slowly, the room emptied as people drifted off to bed.

Finally, as Lee Jordan left, Harry ran upstairs to their dark dormitory. He pulled out the cloak from his trunk and rushed back down to meet the others. They looked like a very nervous, rag-tag group of students. Serena was wearing her nicest blouse and blazer, as though looking nice would somehow help them. Thomas had picked a hole in his sweater while he'd been waiting; it was large enough to look as though Fluffy had already attacked him. Phoebe was rummaging impossibly deep in her little bag, not paying attention to anyone else.

"We'd better put the cloak on here and make sure it covers all of us. If Filch spots one of our feet wandering along on its own-." Harry started.

"What are you doing?" A voice from the corner of the room demanded. Neville appeared from behind an armchair, clutching Trevor the toad, who looked as though he'd been making another bid for freedom.

"Nothing, Neville, nothing." Harry lied, hurriedly putting the cloak behind his back. Neville stared at their guilty faces.

"You're going out again." He deduced.

"Nope. Just standing here. Doing nothing." Thomas lied terribly and grimaced at his own words. Phoebe rolled her eyes.

"Neville, go up to bed, sweetie." She said patronizingly but Neville just frowned at her.

Harry looked at the grandfather clock by the door. They couldn't afford to waste any more time; Snape might even now be playing Fluffy to sleep.

"You can't go out." Neville protested. "You'll be caught n. Gryffindor will be in even more trouble."

"You don't understand. This is important." Harry tried to explain. But Neville was clearly steeling himself to do something desperate.

"I won't let you do it." He said, hurrying to stand in front of the portrait hole. "I'll... I'll fight you!"

"Fine!" Phoebe started forward, but Serena caught her arm and pulled her back.

"Neville, please-."

"No! I don't think you should be breaking any more rules! And you were the ones who told me to stand up to people!"

"Not to us!" Thomas protested.

"Neville, you don't know what's going on here." Phoebe took a step forward and Neville dropped Trevor the toad, who leaped out of sight.

"Go on then, try and hit me!" Neville told her, raising his fists. "I'm ready!"

"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" Thomas took out his wand. "Phoebe, get a gag for him." He pointed his wand at Neville and cast the leg-locker curse on him. Neville's legs snapped together and he fell face first onto the floor.

Harry and Thomas ran over and held him down, their hands over his mouth, until Phoebe pulled a roll of Spello-tape out of her bag. She tore off a good amount with her teeth and quickly slapped it over his mouth. Using the rest of the roll, she taped Neville's wrists together and then taped his wrists to the heaviest table in the common room.

The whole time, Serena stared at them in horror. As Neville started wriggling his upper body, unsuccessfully trying to break free, she turned to look at her friends.

"Was that entirely necessary?"

"You know it was." Thomas told her, looking away from his friend and trying to keep his expression calm.

But leaving Neville lying motionless on the floor didn't feel like a very good omen. The cloak covered all of them, barely, and they set off with their hearts pounding in their ears. Serena insisted they stop by the kitchens, as she had a plan to distract Fluffy. It was very much out of their way, but the others agreed, as they hadn't had a plan for the three-headed beast themselves.

Harry hadn't even known of the kitchens, but Serena managed to lead them into the gigantic room under the Great Hall near the Huffepuff common room. There were tables identical to the ones in The Great Hall above, high ceilings and huge fireplaces. It was also, thankfully, devoid of any living creature. Serena ducked out from under the cloak and ran to the ice chest in one corner. It looked very un-magical, but, then again, Harry had yet to learn a spell to keep food fresh to take the place one. She pulled out a large roast and hissed for Phoebe to come help her.

After a bit of arguing, Phoebe agreed to carry three large roasts in her magical bag. With the roasts collected, they all got under the cloak once more and ran for the third floor corridor, feeling as though they'd already wasted too much time on Neville and the journey to the kitchens.

A few moments later, they were there, outside the third-floor corridor... and the door was already ajar.

"Well, there you are." Harry said under his breath. "Snape's already got past Fluffy."

Seeing the open door somehow seemed to impress upon all three of them what was facing them. Underneath the cloak, Harry turned to the other three.

"If you want to go back, I won't blame you. You can take the cloak, I won't need it now."

"Don't be a bloody idiot." Phoebe snapped.

"It's not like I'd be able to go to sleep anyway, worrying about you." Thomas added.

"Let's go." Serena sounded brave, but her eyes were wide with fear.

Harry pushed the door open a bit more. As the door creaked, low, rumbling growls met their ears. All three of the dog's noses sniffed madly in their direction, even though it couldn't see them. They slipped inside, struggling to keep the cloak around all of them as they did so.

"What's that at it's feet?" Thomas asked, motioning under the cloak at an object lying on the ground.

"It's a harp." Serena answered.

"That's a very feminine instrument. Snape should be ashamed." Phoebe chuckled. Serena and Phoebe started to argue about whether or not instruments could be feminine vs. masculine but Harry and Thomas quickly shut them up.

"You had a plan?" Harry prompted and Serena nodded fast in agreement. They dug the roasts out of Phoebe's bag and Serena lifted the edge of the cloak.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" She whispered and the roasts floated above them. Fluffy's three heads sniffed at them and tried to grab them out of the air, but Serena kept them floating just out of his reach.

With Fluffy momentarily distracted by the delicious floating roasts, the four chucked aside the cloak and hurried to the trap door. Serena kept the roasts floating while the boys managed to swing open the trap door.

"What's down there?" Serena asked anxiously, not taking her eyes off her task.

"Nothing but darkness. Cheery." Phoebe seemed paler than usual; Harry himself didn't feel too brave anymore either.

"I'll drop down first." He whispered. He lowered himself through the hole until he was hanging on by his fingertips. "If anything happens to me, don't follow. Go straight to the owlery and send Hedwig to Dumbledore, right?"

"How do we know if something happens?" Serena asked.

"The signal will be Harry imitating the high pitched scream of a very frightened eleven year old yet to hit puberty." Thomas explained and Phoebe snickered.

Harry let go. Phoebe and Thomas peered into the darkness, but couldn't see if he had landed safely or not. A second later, they heard:

"It's okay! It's a soft landing, you can jump!" It sounded very far away.

"Ladies first." Phoebe told Thomas, jerking her head towards the trap door. Thomas paused, trying to think up a comeback, but then just jumped down without a word. Phoebe turned back towards Serena. "Come on, let's go!" She called, waving her friend over.

"Alright..." Serena said nervously. She stopped her spell and the roasts fell right into Fluffy's three mouths. She ran and jumped through the trap door and Phoebe hurried after her before Fluffy could swallow and decide he wanted something bigger to eat.

They fell for just long enough a time for them to think they'd made a terrible mistake before they landed on something soft and mushy. It was a plant... And it was starting to grab hold of them with its long creepers.

Thomas was scrambling for the edge of the room, but the plant had a hold on his ankles, preventing him from getting very far. Harry was already completely tangled up and one creeper was aiming to wrap itself around his throat.

"It's okay. You can jump." Phoebe mocked Harry's earlier words bitterly.

"What is this?" Serena demanded, trying to fight her way over to the edge of the room. She was just as stuck as Thomas.

"It's Devil's Snare!" Thomas yelled back, trying to free his ankles.

"What do we do?" Serena shrieked, trying to shield her face and throat from the monstrous plant.

"Fire!" Thomas cried out, his voice slightly higher pitched than usual. "Kill it with fire!"

"How... do...?" Harry tried to choke out, but the plant had wrapped one creeper around his throat and was starting to squeeze.

None of them could reach their wands, which they'd stowed in their back pockets for safe keeping while they'd run through the school. Harry was starting to turn an odd shade of blue and Serena was crying in panic.

Phoebe's bag was dangling from her belt loop. She looked down at it and back up at Serena.

"Move your foot up. Just a little. Move my bag up." She ordered. Serena struggled, but managed kick her foot up and nudge the bag just up enough for Phoebe's to get her hand, trapped at the wrist by the plant, inside it. Phoebe pulled out her lighter and flicked it on.

The result was immediate; the creeper around her wrist pulled back at the feel of the open flame and freed her. She had her arm back and she tossed the lit lighter into the middle of the room. The plant caught fire just as the lighter went out. The creepers retracted into the shadowy corners of the room and the four students scrambled to reach the opposite wall before the plant came back again.

"Thomas, you genius." Serena kissed him loudly on the cheek and the boy moaned and pulled away.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." But he looked pleased with himself.

"You okay, Harry?" Phoebe asked. Harry nodded; he could breathe again and his skin was turning back to the correct color.

"This way." Harry wheezed, pointing down a stone passageway, which was the only way forward. Exchanging looks and grabbing their wand from their pockets, they headed towards their next challenge.


	20. The Young Kings and Queens

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

* * *

All they could hear apart from their footsteps was the gentle drip of water trickling down the walls. They knew they must have dropped miles below the school. The only good thing about the plant was it had prevented them from breaking bones, or worse, upon landing.

The passageway they followed sloped downward and Harry was reminded of Gringotts. With an unpleasant jolt of the heart, he remembered the dragons said to be guarding vaults in the wizards' bank. If they met a dragon, a fully-grown dragon... Norbert had been bad enough...

"What's that sound?" Phoebe whispered. Harry listened. A soft rustling and clinking seemed to be coming from up ahead.

"Do you think it's a ghost? I don't know how to kill a ghost." Thomas admitted.

"I don't know... Sounds like wings to me." Harry whispered back.

"I see a light up ahead." Serena told them, pointing with her hand.

"No, Serena, don't go towards the light!" Thomas cried, overly dramatic.

"Oh, stop it." Serena hissed at him.

"What? It's good life advice." He responded innocently. Harry smiled slightly; at least nothing would get too serious with Thomas around.

They reached the end of the passageway and saw before them a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. It was full of small, jewel-bright birds, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy wooden door.

"Do you think they'll attack us if we try to get to the other door?" Serena questioned.

"Well, I doubt they're just decoration. We've seen the resident house plant." Phoebe shot back.

"Have any ideas for this one, animal whisperer?" Thomas added.

"I've never seen birds like that. They might be hummingbirds but they don't look quite-."

"I'll run for it." Harry interrupted, feeling as though they were wasting a lot of precious time.

"What? No!" But Harry had already covered his face with his arms and started to sprint across the room. He expected to feel sharp beaks and claws tearing at him any second, but nothing happened. He reached the door untouched. He pulled the handle, but it was locked.

The other three followed him. They all took turns tugging and heaving at the door. It wouldn't budge, not even when Phoebe tried to pick the lock.

"Step back." Thomas ordered and something in his tone made everyone obey. "I know karate."

"Wait, no you don't-."

"I am supreme lord of the bathroom!" Harry really wished he'd stop saying that. Thomas stood on one leg, drawing his other up to prepare to kick out, his arms out like a baby bird trying to take flight. Everyone nervously stayed out of the way. "HI-YAH!" He kicked the door. It didn't move, Thomas sure did.

He hit the floor on his back and starting rocking himself back and forth, holding his kicking foot.

"Son of biscuit!" He cursed. Serena patted his head semi-comfortingly but Phoebe and Harry just shook their heads. How could Thomas be so book-smart and yet such a dork at the same time? It was a mystery that would have to wait until later to solve.

Out of ideas, they turned and watched the birds soaring overhead, glittering... Glittering? Harry gasped aloud.

"They're not birds! They're keys! Winged keys. Look carefully. So that must mean..." He looked around the chamber while the others squinted up at the flock of keys. "Yes, look! Broomsticks! We've got to catch the key to the door!"

"But there are hundreds of them up there!" Phoebe pointed out.

Thomas examined the door as he hopped around on his now injured foot.

"We're looking for an old-fashioned one. Probably silver, like the handle." He reported confidently.

They each seized a broomstick and kicked off into the air, soaring into the midst of the cloud of keys. They grabbed and snatched, but the bewitched keys darted and dived so quickly it was almost impossible to catch one.

Not for nothing, though, was Harry the youngest Seeker in a century. He had a knack for spotting things other people didn't. After a minute's weaving about through the whirl of rainbow feathers, he noticed a large silver key that had a bent wing, as if it had already been caught and stuffed roughly into the keyhole

"That one!" He called to the others. "That big one with bright blue wings; the feathers are all crumpled on one side. We've got to close in on it! Phoebe, you come at it from above. Thomas, stay below and stop it from going down. Serena, chase it towards me; I'll try and catch it. Right, NOW!"

Phoebe dived, Thomas rocketed upward and Serena shot at it from one side. The key shot towards Harry, dodged him and sped toward the wall. Harry shot after it, leaned forward and, with a nasty, crunching noise, pinned it against the stone with one hand. His friends' cheers echoed around the large chamber.

They landed quickly and Harry ran to the door, the key struggling in his hand. He rammed it into the lock and turned. It worked. The moment the lock had clicked open, the key took flight again, looking very battered now that it had been caught twice.

"Ready?" Harry asked the other three, his hand on the door handle. They nodded. He pulled the door open.

The next chamber was so dark they couldn't see anything at all. But as they stepped into it, light suddenly flooded the room to reveal an astonishing sight: they were standing on the edge of a huge chessboard. They were behind the black chessmen, which were all taller than they were and carved from what looked like black stone. Facing them, way across the chamber, were the white pieces. They had no faces.

"That's not creepy at all." Serena let a bit of uncharacteristic sarcasm seep into her voice, holding onto Harry's arm.

"Now what do we do?" Harry whispered.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Some excitement was creeping into Phoebe's voice as she hurried forward to examine the black stone piece closer. "We've got to play our way across the room." Behind the white pieces they could see another door.

"How?" Harry asked and Phoebe turned to look at her friends, a smirk on her face that made them all frown.

"We're going to have to be chessmen."

"I don't like this!" Serena said at once.

"I don't like the way you play." Thomas accused Phoebe. She merely rolled her grey eyes, which seemed to shine brighter at the prospect of a real life chess match.

"Well, too bad. I'm the best player. Ergo: I'm in charge." She skipped, actually _skipped_ , up to the edge of the board and stood above them like a ruling overlord stood above peasants. "Tommy, my boy, you are going to take the place of that bishop on the left side. Harry, you're the bishop on the other side. Serena, take the place of that rook next to Harry's bishop."

The chessmen seemed to have been listening, because at these words the bishops and a castle turned their backs on the white pieces and walked off the board, leaving three empty squares that Harry, Thomas and Serena took.

"What about you?" Serena asked over her shoulder, shifting uncomfortably on her square. Phoebe smirked again, eyes twinkling with glee.

"Oh, honey, I'm always the queen."

White always moved first; across the board, a pawn moved two spaces forward. Phoebe calmly started to direct the black pieces. They moved silently wherever she sent them.

Harry's knees were trembling. What if they lost?

Phoebe let their pawns get destroyed first. Canon fodder, she called them. It was terrifying to watch. The pieces would get smashed to a million pieces and swept off the board like dust. Phoebe obviously took note of that, because she kept her friends far away from danger, using the other pieces to actually play. She herself, however, darted around the board like a maniac. She would stepped into the same square as the pieces she took and they'd tumble off the board and shatter on the floor there. She took as many pieces as they lost and the game was uncomfortably close.

The scariest part was when Phoebe made it her personal mission to take out the other side's queen. She had to let one of their knights get destroyed in order to achieve it, but she made it out alright and had taken out the other side's main defense.

Harry was having a hard time following Phoebe's strategy, or even figuring out if she had one. Thomas kept quiet, but he was pacing as much as he could on his own square. Serena refused to to lower her hands from her eyes to see what was happening.

"I have to get taken!" Phoebe called suddenly, after debating her options for a long, silent moment.

"No!" Harry and Thomas both shouted at her. Serena peeked through her fingers with a horrified expression.

"I have to take out the king's last defense. He'll move forward one space to take me. Then Harry can checkmate him." Phoebe explained.

"There has to be other way. Some other piece." Thomas started.

"No one has moves like the queen." Phoebe tried to sound smug, but her smile faltered.

"Phoebe-!" Serena shrieked but their friend was already starting to walk diagonally across the board, towards the rook in front of the king itself.

"You three can take on any other challenge. It's fine. Just don't stick around afterwards. You need to keep moving." She called shakily over her shoulder. She reached the square with the rook. The rook obediently moved off the board and the king started forward, raising his stone sword.

Serena started screaming incoherently at Phoebe. Thomas was insulting the king's mother very creatively. Harry couldn't look away; it was like a car crash. It was sure to be awful, but he just couldn't look away.

As the king swung with his sword, Phoebe hit the ground in a loose fetal to avoid it. She avoided the first downward stroke, but then the king swung it again like a golf club. It caught her right in the rib-cage and she went flying towards the edge of the board. Harry watched her, frozen with fear, time seeming to stop. She hit the edge of the board with a sickening thud and limply rolled off onto the cluttered floor.

Serena started to step forward, but Harry managed to choke out a 'no!'. They were still playing, after all. Shaking, Harry moved three spaces to the left. The white king took off his crown and threw it at Harry's feet.

They had won. The chessmen parted and bowed, leaving the door ahead clear.

"We have to go." Harry called to the others as they sprinted across the huge board. Phoebe had told them not to stick around. They needed to get the stone before Snape, after all.

"Go on." Serena told them, sniffing. "I want to stay with her." They all looked at Phoebe. She looked as though she'd been knocked out or... _No,_ Harry told himself. She was just knocked out. She was lying among the debris from the other chess pieces, cuts decorating her face and arms from landing in a pile of broken stone.

"She said-." Harry started.

"I don't care. Go on. Thomas'll be more use than me anyway. I'm fresh out of roasts." Serena tried to laugh, but it came out more like a dry sob. She ran over to Phoebe, hopping nimbly off the board and kneeling next to her friend.

The boys took one last look at the girls and hurried into the next room. Harry's mind was racing. They'd already passed Hagrid's test. The Devil's Snare had to have been Professor Sprout's. Flitwick would've put the charms on the keys. McGonagall could've transfigured the chessmen. That just left Quirrel's spell and Snape's.

As the boys walked into the next room, a disgusting smell filled their nostrils, making both of them pull their robes up over their noses. Eyes watering, they saw, flat on the floor in front of them, a troll even larger than the one they had tackled, out cold with a bloody lump on its head.

"I'm glad we didn't have to fight that one." Harry whispered as they stepped carefully over one of its massive legs. "Come on, I can't breathe."

He pulled open the next door, both of them hardly daring to look at what came next. But there was nothing very frightening in the room, just a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line.

"Snape's." Harry guessed. "What do we have to do?"

They stepped over the threshold, and immediately a fire sprang up behind them in the doorway. It wasn't ordinary fire either; it was purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward. They were trapped.

Thomas seized a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. Harry looked over his shoulder to read it:

 _Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,_

 _Two of us will help you, which ever you would find,_

 _One among us seven will let you move ahead,_

 _Another will transport the drinker back instead,_

 _Two among our number hold only nettle wine,_

 _Three of us are killers, waiting bidden in line._

 _Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,_

 _To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:_

 _First, however slyly the poison tries to hide You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;_

 _Second, different are those who stand at either end, But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;_

 _Third, as you see clearly, all are different size, Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;_

 _Fourth, the second left and the second on the right Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight._

"Good ole Snape's getting poetic. How... weird." Thomas frowned but then collected his train of thoughts again. "But this is good. It's just logic. There are puzzles like this in kids activity books." He chuckled.

"You can figure it out?" Harry asked hopefully. Thomas waved away his concern.

"Of course. It's as easy as karate." That didn't make Harry feel better.

Thomas read the paper a couple times and started singing the riddle to himself. He walked up and down the line of bottles, still singing the riddle to the tune of Mary Had A Little Lamb. At last, Thomas turned back to Harry.

"Solved it. The smallest bottle will get us through the black fire and toward the fancy rock." Harry looked at the tiny bottle.

"There's only enough there for one of us. That's hardly one swallow." They looked at each other for a moment. "Which one will get you back through the purple flames?"

Thomas pointed at a rounded bottle at the right end of the line. It was slightly fuller, but obviously no one had intended so many people to be passing through the tasks in one night.

"You drink that. No, listen, get back and get the girls. Grab brooms from the flying- key room, they'll get you out of the trapdoor and past Fluffy. Go straight to the owlery and send Hedwig to Dumbledore, we need him. I might be able to hold Snape off for a while, but I'm no match for him, really."

"But, mate, you'll get creamed. Dumbledore better had a spatula handy when he comes-."

"Thomas." Harry groaned. His friend stopped and ran a hand through his sandy brown hair.

"Alright, alright." He relented. "I'll be the hero saving the girls, you be the hero getting the Stone."

"You drink first." Harry instructed. "You are sure which is which, aren't you?"

"Ninety percent, give or take." Thomas took a swig from the bottle and then shuddered violently.

"Is it poison?" Harry asked worriedly.

"Nah. It's just like ice water. They could've dumped some lemonade powder in it..."

"Quick, go, before it wears off."

"Be careful. I don't want to explain to Serena why I wasn't backing you up and you got killed-."

"Quickly!"

"-cause she'll beat me to death with that sketchbook of hers-."

"Thomas-."

"-and she never shows anyone what's in that book. Do you find that odd-."

"GO!" Finally, Thomas rolled his eyes and ran back through the purple fire.


	21. Zeroes To Heroes

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

 **A/N We're nearing the end of First Year, but I already have a couple chapters of Second Year planned out. I fully intend to write all seven books, but my writing has slowed down a little bit so the updates may be slower. Sorry in advance if that happens. In any case, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Remember: reviews are always more than welcome!**

* * *

Thomas ran back through the chamber with the troll, only gagging once, and sprinted back into the chess room. Serena whirled as he entered none-too-quietly, wand raised in defense. When she saw it was him, she dropped it to her side again.

"Thomas! Where's... Where's Harry?" She stammered.

"He's going after Snape. We've got to get Dumbledore. Come on!" He insisted when she didn't move. She snapped out of it and helped him pull the still unconscious Phoebe up. Supporting her between them, they half carried, half dragged their friend along as fast as they could go.

Back in the key room, Thomas put Phoebe stomach-first over a broom. It didn't look remotely safe, but it was the best he could do. Serena pocketed her wand and clambered onto a second broom. With a nod to each other, they sped off.

In the future, whenever Thomas told the story, he made it sound cool. He said they expertly piloted their brooms out and would've made Wood cry with joy if he'd seen them. In reality, they smashed into walls and Phoebe fell off Thomas's broom three times before they even made it back to the room with the Devil's Snare.

Trying to hold Phoebe on the broom more securely, Thomas rocketed up through the trap door, miraculously avoiding smashing into the ceiling instead. Fluffy was too confused to do anything as they flew past one of his noses. Thomas sped into the hallway and stopped his broom there as he and Phoebe fell side-ways off it.

Serena, however, had done a u-turn back into the room. She grabbed the invisibility cloak off the floor, before spinning again to head for the door. She had just about impressed herself with her flying when her broom hit the edge of the open door and she fell to the floor, still clutching the cloak.

"Serena!" Thomas grabbed her by the back of her jacket and yanked her out of the room. She flailed her feet and managed to kick the door shut behind her before Fluffy could stick one of his heads out and drag them back in.

Serena scrambled to her feet and sprinted down the passageway. Thomas went over and tried to haul Phoebe up across his shoulders, but couldn't manage to do it, leaving himself looking like an idiot when a herd of teachers came racing around the corner. Serena was sprinting to keep up, still clutching the cloak to her chest like a security blanket.

"Ms. Black!" Madam Pomfrey was with them and made a bee-line for the unconscious girl. Thomas dropped her unceremoniously on the floor to let the nurse examine her.

Thomas and Serena spotted Snape and Dumbledore rushing into the room with Fluffy. Thomas looked at Serena and saw she was thinking the exact same thing as he was: if Snape was with them, who was Harry facing?

* * *

"And what would've happened if you were killed down there? Who would've known? What would we have done?" McGonagall's lecture had gone on for hours, it seemed. Sitting in her office, it was hard not to wish they were back facing Fluffy or even Devil's Snare as opposed to their stern Professor.

The afternoon sun was high in the sky. Phoebe had been released for the hospital wing, though she was still sporting some cuts and looked like roadkill, as she herself admitted. Thomas was tired. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten, let alone slept. Serena was just plain worried. They weren't allowed to see Harry yet and she was fidgeting through McGonagall's whole lecture, barely even listening.

"I have to write home to parents about this." McGonagall finished and the trio looked up at her.

"Mum will kill me." Serena said with certainty.

"Dad will... I honestly don't know." Thomas frowned, considering it.

"I don't have parents." Phoebe pointed out smugly. Professor McGonagall turned to her with pursed lips.

"Mr. Lupin, Ms. Pettigrew. Please go to your dormitories and rest. I need to have a word with Ms. Black." She spoke without looking at the other two. Thomas and Serena exchanged looks but then ran for it, leaving their friend behind without a second thought. Once the door had swung shut behind them again, McGonagall continued: "I've been corresponding with some cousins of yours-."

"The Malfoys are not-."

"Not them." McGonagall interrupted, exasperated. "Mrs. Malfoy's sister, Andromeda. She and her husband, Ted Tonks, have agreed to take you in."

Phoebe stared at her teacher, trying to decide how to react that piece of news. She was going to get out of the orphanage? She was going to live in an actual house? Someone wanted her? She must've looked as dumbstruck as she felt, because McGonagall went on:

"Yes, they've agreed to take you in. They have a daughter that graduated just last year, in fact. I'm sure you'll be very happy there." She gave Phoebe one of her rare smiles to reassure her. "But it's a pity that the very first letter I had to write them after they agreed to become your legal guardians was about how you broke nearly every school rule and nearly got yourself killed!"

"Sorry?" It came out like a question and Professor McGonagall sighed.

"You are very lucky, Ms. Black, that their daughter was just as much of a handful. I'm certain they're used to it. Now, off to bed. You look to be in need of some rest as well." McGonagall waved her away but Phoebe threw her arms around the woman in a hug before she left. She was surprised when McGonagall returned the gesture, just for a moment before she was ordering her off to bed again.

Phoebe was practically skipping as she headed back to Gryffindor tower.

* * *

It was two more days before the trio was allowed into the hospital wing to see Harry. By that time, wild rumors about what had happened were circulating the school and even Thomas, Serena and Phoebe couldn't tell what the truth was. As it turned out, it was one of those rare occasions when the true story is even more strange and exciting than the wild rumors.

Harry told them everything: Quirrell, the mirror, the Stone and Voldemort. He thought they were a very good audience. They gasped at all the right places and Serena even screamed out loud when he told them what was under Quirrell's turban.

"So the Stone's gone? What happens to Flamel? Does he just die?" Phoebe asked as he finished. They were all sitting on his bed together; it made it very crowded by Harry didn't mind a bit.

"That's what I said, but Dumbledore thinks that... What was it? 'To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure'."

"But, yeah, the dude's definitely dead." Thomas agreed.

"So what happened to you three?" Harry asked. As they told their story, complete with the girls correcting Thomas when he got something obviously wrong, they realized it was nothing compared to what Harry had done. He listened to them and seemed impressed by their own heroics.

"Do you reckon Dumbledore knew everything?" Thomas asked as their own story ended. It hadn't escaped anyone's notice how Dumbledore was already there when they went to get him and how he went straight to Harry, as if already knowing he was still down there.

"He's a funny man, Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance. I think he knows more or less everything that goes on here, you know. I reckon he had a pretty good idea we were going to try, and instead of stopping us, he just taught us enough to help. I don't think it was an accident he let me find out how the mirror worked. It's almost like he thought I had the right to face Voldemort if I could..." Harry explained thoughtfully.

"The adult supervision here..." Phoebe muttered, shaking her head.

"Enough about that night." Serena said, bouncing on the bed slightly. "Harry, you've got to be up for the end-of-year feast tomorrow. The points are all in and Slytherin won, of course. You missed the last Quidditch match, by the way, and Gryffindor was slaughtered by Ravenclaw without you. But the food will be good."

At that moment, Madam Pomfrey bustled over to kick the other three out, saying Harry needed his rest. Serena hugged him one last time, Thomas and Phoebe congratulated him on not dying once more and the three hurried out, leaving Harry alone with his thoughts.

* * *

Harry made his way down to the end-of-year feast alone the next night. He had been held up by Madam Pomfrey's fussing about, insisting on giving him one last checkup. He carried his new scrapbook with him, still silently thanking Hagrid for the wonderful gift. He could see his parents now, whenever he wanted, without some magic mirror.

The Great Hall was already full when he got there. The was decked out in the Slytherin colors of green and silver to celebrate Slytherin's winning the house cup for the seventh year in a row. A huge banner showing the Slytherin serpent covered the wall behind the High Table.

When Harry walked in there was a sudden hush and then everybody started talking loudly at once. He slipped into a seat between Serena and Thomas at the Gryffindor table and tried to ignore the fact that people were standing up to look at him.

Fortunately, Dumbledore arrived moments later. The babble died away.

"Another year gone!" Dumbledore announced cheerfully. "And I must trouble you with an old man's wheezing waffle before we sink our teeth into our delicious feast. What a year it has been! Hopefully your heads are all a little fuller than they were... you have the whole summer ahead to get them nice and empty before next year starts... Now, as I understand it, the house cup here needs awarding, and the points stand thus: in fourth place, Gryffindor, with three hundred and twelve points; in third, Hufflepuff, with three hundred and fifty-two; Ravenclaw has four hundred and twenty-six and Slytherin, four hundred and seventy- two." A storm of cheering and stamping broke out from the Slytherin table. Harry could see Draco Malfoy banging his goblet on the table. It was a sickening sight. "Yes, Yes, well done, Slytherin. However, recent events must be taken into account.

The room went very still. The Slytherins' smiles faded a little. Other students perked up.

"Ahem. I have a few last-minute points to dish out. Let me see. Yes... First, to Ms. Serena Pettigrew, for bravery and intelligence in the face of a dangerous beast... I award Gryffindor house forty points!"

The hall applauded with thunderous claps seeming to shake the floor. Serena looked shocked and ducked her head down, flushing with embarrassment. Harry cheered for her and she shot him a half-amused, half-embarrassed look between her fingers. He just grinned back at her.

"Second, to Ms. Phoebe Black for the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years... I award Gryffindor house forty points."

Gryffindor cheers nearly raised the bewitched ceiling; the stars overhead seemed to quiver. Phoebe grinned proudly and stood up on her seat to bow dramatically. Thomas whooped for her and gave her high fives as she finally sat back down. At last there was silence again.

"Third, to Mr. Thomas Lupin, for the use of cool logic in the face of fire... I award Gryffindor house forty points."

Cheering and shouts erupted once again as Thomas jumped up onto his seat, pointed at the Slytherin table and yelled 'BOO YAH, MALFOY!' at the top of his lungs. Draco, indeed, looked like he was about to stroke out.

"Fourth, to Mr. Harry Potter..." Dumbledore continued over the noise. The room went deadly quiet. "For pure nerve and outstanding courage, I award Gryffindor house forty points."

The din was deafening. Those who could add up while yelling themselves hoarse knew that Gryffindor now had four hundred and seventy-two points. Exactly the same as Slytherin. They had tied for the house cup. If only Dumbledore had given Harry just one more point...

Dumbledore raised his hand. The room gradually fell silent.

"There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr. Neville Longbottom."

Someone standing outside the Great Hall might well have thought some sort of explosion had taken place, so loud was the noise that erupted from the Gryffindor table. Harry, Thomas, Serena and Phoebe stood up to yell and cheer as Neville, white with shock, disappeared under a pile of people hugging him. He had never won so much as a point for Gryffindor before.

Phoebe laughed and pointed at Malfoy, who couldn't have looked more stunned and horrified if he'd just had the Body-Bind Curse put on him. Thomas yelled 'BOO-YAH' again at him and then started dancing on his seat.

"Which means-." Dumbledore called over the storm of applause, for even Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were celebrating the downfall of Slytherin. "-we need a little change of decoration." He clapped his hands.

In an instant, the green hangings became scarlet and the silver became gold; the huge Slytherin serpent vanished and a towering Gryffindor lion took its place. Snape was shaking Professor McGonagall's hand, with a horrible, forced smile. He caught Harry's eye and Harry knew at once that Snape's feelings toward him hadn't changed one bit. This didn't worry Harry. It seemed as though life would be back to normal next year, or as normal as it ever was at Hogwarts. It was the best evening of Harry's life, better than winning at Quidditch, or Christmas, or knocking out mountain trolls... He would never, ever forget that night.


	22. Life Goes On

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

 **A/N Sorry for the slow update, but this wraps up first year and we'll be moving on to second year shortly. Short chapter, but I hope you guys enjoy anyway**

* * *

Harry had almost forgotten that the exam results were still to come, but come they did. To his great surprise, considering his stress while taking his exams, he passed. Thomas got some of the best marks in their year, with Serena and Phoebe both managing to land somewhere in the middle. Even Neville scraped through, his good Herbology mark making up for his abysmal Potions one.

And suddenly, their wardrobes were empty, their trunks were packed. Neville's toad was found lurking in a corner of the toilets. Notes were handed out to all students, warning them not to use magic over the holidays. Hagrid was there to take them down to the fleet of boats that sailed across the lake. They were boarding the Hogwarts Express, talking and laughing as the countryside became greener and tidier. They were eating Bettie Bott's Every Flavor Beans as they sped past Muggle towns. They were pulling off their wizard robes and putting on jackets and coats. Finally, they were pulling into platform nine and three-quarters at King's Cross Station.

It took quite a while for them all to get off the platform. A wizened old guard was up by the ticket barrier, letting them go through the gate in twos and threes so they didn't attract attention by all bursting out of a solid wall at once and alarming the Muggles.

Harry wasn't thrilled about going back to the Dursley's, but Serena and Thomas were excited to go home for the summer and tell their family about their adventures. Phoebe was mostly nervous about meeting her new adoptive family, though everyone had assured her that she'd be liked there.

People jostled them as they moved forward toward the gateway back to the Muggle world. Some of them called out to Harry as they passed by:

"Bye, Harry!"

"See you, Potter!"

"You're still famous." Serena said, shaking her head with a smile.

"Yeah, Harry, you've got to stop killing people. It's becoming a habit now." Thomas scolded him teasingly.

He, Harry, Serena and Phoebe passed through the gateway together. Harry could see a large group of people waiting, trying not to look too suspicious about waiting around by a brick wall. All of them were reuniting with kids or smiling eagerly as they awaited their own children.

Thomas spotted his dad and the four of them headed over together, since they couldn't spot any of their own family. Remus Lupin, Harry saw, was a young man that looked older than he was. He had flecks of grey in his hair already and faint scars on his face. He greeted Thomas with a smile and a hug and then immediately turned to shake everyone else's hands.

Ms. Larkin found them within seconds, greeted Remus without any introduction and reluctantly informed Harry that Vernon and Petunia were there to pick him up. Harry almost wished they'd forgotten about him; he would have much preferred to ride back to Privet Drive with Ms. Larkin and Serena instead.

Harry stayed with the group for a few moments longer as exchanged their goodbyes and promises to write over the summer. Just as he was about to go find his aunt and uncle, a familiar pink haired woman bounded up to them.

"Phoebe!" The woman, Tonks, was the same one that had helped them smuggle Norbert out of the castle. She threw her arms around Phoebe in a hug and then turned to call over her shoulder: "Mum, dad, over here."

"Tonks as... Oh." Phoebe realized.

"Hey, little sis." Tonks greeted her excitedly.

"I think you'll be liked." Thomas whispered to her, smirking. He hadn't met Tonks before but it was easy for anyone to see that Phoebe would not be lonely at her new house.

"Bye, guys." Phoebe called over her shoulder as Tonks winked at them and started leading her away.

Thomas left with his dad after a final goodbye and sarcastic salute to Harry.

Serena turned to give Harry a hug before she left with her mother. Even though they both knew they'd be seeing each other all summer, it wasn't going to be anything like Hogwarts had been.

"Ready, are you?" A voice barked behind Harry. It was Uncle Vernon, still purple-faced, still mustached, still looking furious at the nerve of Harry, carrying an owl in a cage in a station full of ordinary people. Behind him stood Aunt Petunia and Dudley, looking terrified at the very sight of Harry. "Hurry up, boy, we haven't got all day." He walked away.

Harry hung back for a last word with Serena.

"See you later, then." Serena told him, staring uncertainly after Uncle Vernon. Harry just smiled at her.

"They don't know we're not allowed to use magic at home. I'm going to have a lot of fun with Dudley this summer..."


	23. Past Meets Present

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

 **A/N This is officially the beginning of second year. Sorry for the wait and I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

The summer of 1992 was exceptionally boring by the standards Serena had come to live by. She saw Harry every day and they talked about their former adventures at Hogwarts but it was nothing like living them. Serena surprised herself by missing the danger and excitement; maybe the sorting hat had been onto something when it put her in Gryffindor...

The most exciting thing that had happened in the Larkin house was Caitlyn getting her acceptance letter to Hogwarts. Serena was torn between feeling protective and feeling excited. Hogwarts was bound to have _something_ odd going on and, somehow, students always seemed to get involved. Their mother seemed to have the same thought because, as Serena helped her set the table for dinner while Caitlyn was upstairs, Ms. Larkin said:

"You'll watch over your sister while you're at school, right?"

"Of course." Serena was mildly offended by the doubt in her mother's tone. Granted, she and Caitlyn had never been a tight knit pair. While Serena preferred art and animals, Caitlyn preferred sports and being better than anyone else. Serena supposed it was a normal baby-of-the-family thing; Caitlyn had a natural urge to prove herself in everything she did. But, being Caitlyn, she'd dialed that nature urge up to eleven. Still, Serena was the older sister. Taking care of Caitlyn, even if only from afar, was deeply ingrained her already.

"You know, I never had such an exciting year at Hogwarts as you did. It was just studying and bullies all year round for me..." Ms. Larkin mused, shaking her head. Serena shrugged it off, trying to remember which side of the plate the spoons were supposed to go on. Her mother was a stickler for proper order.

"I guess it comes with being the best friend of the Boy Who Lived." Serena mocked Harry's title with a scoff; to her, he would always be the scrawny little boy who had comforted her in nursery school when she'd scrapped her knee. Not some legendary hero that had defeated some evil wizard, but just Harry from down the street.

"Don't make fun of him." Ms. Larkin scolded as she began to toss the salad.

"Sorry." Serena mumbled, a red flush appearing in her cheeks. It wasn't often her mother got after her for anything.

"He survived when James and Lily didn't. It's not something to make fun of him for." Ms. Larkin explained.

"Did you know them? His parents, I mean." There was a pause as Ms. Larkin considered her question, her movements slowly.

"Yes." She finally replied, but she seemed hesitant. Serena kept quiet as a mouse, hoping she'd continue. She did, after another long moment. "Your father was good friends with both of them, even after Hogwarts."

"Really?" Serena asked, finishing with setting the table and walking over to lean against the kitchen counter.

"They were best friends. But I didn't know them overly well myself. I didn't know any of your fathers friends that well, really." Ms. Larkin explained. She sighed, set the salad bowl aside and turned her full attention to her daughter. "Your father was a good man, I'm sure. But sometimes I don't think I knew him very well either."

"But you were with him for..." Serena trailed off, realizing she didn't know nearly as much about her parents' relationship as she thought she did. In her mind, they'd been a perfectly happy, normal couple. But some things weren't adding up. "You never married." She said aloud, pressing gently for more information.

"I was waiting for him to ask me. Or, that's what I told myself. Looking back, I don't know if I would've said yes."

"But you had me and Caitlyn-."

"Caitlyn and I." Ms. Larkin corrected quietly.

"Caitlyn and I, so I thought..." Serena trailed off again. What she thought and what actually happened was something very different, she knew now.

Ms. Larkin sighed again. Sometimes, Serena thought she looked much older than thirty-two. Before Hogwarts, all Serena really knew about the wizarding world was that there had been a war and that she was a witch herself. Her mother never really gave details, preferring her daughters to live a normal muggle life as long as possible. After she'd been in the world for a year, Serena realized the war wasn't some distant history lesson. It had still been going on when she was a baby. Her mother had lived through the war. Serena respected her mother even more after realizing that.

"Serena, your father was a good father. He was devoted to his family. He loved you and Caitlyn, but I didn't..."

"Love him?" Serena finished questioningly. Ms. Larkin grimaced and Serena knew her guess had been correct.

"No. Not the way I should have. I was young and I was just in love with the idea of a perfect little family. A perfect little life. Just like my mother and father had had. Just like what I'd dreamed of since I was a little girl. But Peter and I... We weren't meant to be. I didn't love _him,_ I loved what he gave me. He bought us a little house, he gave me two beautiful girls, he promised me everything I wanted. So I lied to myself and said I wanted him when I didn't. I knew he kept things from me. I overlooked it. It was wrong." Ms. Larkin seemed to realize she'd been rambling, because she stopped and shook her head, clearing her thoughts. Serena stared at her, hoping she'd continue. She couldn't remember a time when her mother had opened up so much, especially about her father. Ms. Larkin glanced at her and saw her expression. Another sigh left her lips; she'd been sighing a lot that night. "Baby girl, let me give you a piece of advice. When you find someone and you're in a relationship, make sure it's an honest one and that you're not just in for pretty things and daydreams."

Serena didn't know what else to do except nod in understanding. Ms. Larkin echoed her nod and then changed the subject.

"Why don't you go get Harry and bring him over for dinner?"

Serena didn't need to be told twice; in a flash, she had pulled on her boots and was out the door. The familiar short walk to the Dursley's house didn't need any conscious thought; her feet knew where to go and she let her mind wander a bit. She wasn't sure if she was surprised by her mother's confession or not. Deep down, she thought, she'd already known the truth.

As she reached the pristine lawn of the Dursley's house, she paused and looked up at the house. There was something dark on the side of the house when everything else was white and shiny... With a gasp, she realized it was bars covering a window. She knew which window that was: Harry's. They had barred his window. She turned and ran all the way back to her house, feet pounding hard against the concrete sidewalk.

"Mum!" She was shouting before she even got through the door. Ms. Larkin appeared from the kitchen, startled.

"What's the matter?"

"The Dursley's... put bars... over Harry's window." She panted out. Her mother pinched the bridge of her nose, obviously debating something.

"I'll report it to Dumbledore."

"And he'll get him out?"

"In time for school, yes."

"In time for... What about in the meantime?" Serena demanded, jaw popping open in shock. Surely Harry wouldn't be stuck there for another month?

"Serena, do you know why we live here? To watch out for Harry and report back to Dumbledore. But we are not to interfere. Dumbledore made that very clear when he had me move here." Ms. Larkin explained.

"Fine." Serena huffed and Ms. Larkin strode out of the room, no doubt to write a letter to the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Serena herself ran up to her bedroom. She had her own letter to write, to Phoebe and Thomas. She wasn't going to wait for Dumbledore; they'd tried that before and, if they had, it would've ended with Quirrell having that fancy rock. She wasn't going to make Harry wait either, not with that horrid family. She was going to write to Phoebe and Thomas and the three of them were going to do what they did best: help Harry.

* * *

The Tonks' house was... unusual. There was always magic being cast or a prank being pulled by Ted or Tonks. Despite Andromeda's uptight nature, she managed to laugh right along with them. Phoebe found herself right at home in the odd place. It was a weird feeling; having a home. The last home she could remember was in her grandparents' loft apartment in Diagon Alley. It was a long time ago, to say the least.

With Andromeda's help, she was now in possession of her father's old belongings, or most of them at least. They had all been put in a shed on the Tonks' property for lack of room in the house, so Phoebe spent most of her time in the same shed, sorting through everything.

So far, she'd found a fair amount of interesting things among the random assortment of junk. There was a box of pictures shoved under some clothes in a trunk. She found more baby pictures of her than she cared to admit. She almost burned them, but Andromeda caught her when she was starting the fire outside and took them from her. One now stood framed proudly on the mantle next to ones of Tonks'. If Phoebe wasn't so embarrassed of the picture showing her chubby face, annoyingly bright pink onesie and bald head, she would've been happy Andromeda wanted it up there in the first place. She found a few pictures of her mother, which she took into her own room, leaving the pictures of her father to burn later when Andromeda was gone. There was a knife that, as far as she could tell, was enchanted to unlock any lock and untie any knot. She fully intended on sneaking that one into Hogwarts. The most interesting object by far was a flying motorcycle.

Ted convinced Andromeda to let Phoebe keep it in the shed until she was old enough to drive it. Tonks had taken Phoebe out on it and showed her how to fly it. It was exhilarating, riding the motorcycle on either the ground or in the sky.

It was a day in early August when an owl fluttered into the shed. It perched on a stack of boxes and Phoebe recognized it as the Larkin family owl. She wiped the polish on her hands onto her jeans and stepped away from the motorcycle to retrieve the letter it carried. The envelope wasn't even sealed and, when she pulled out the letter, she saw it was very hastily written.

 _Phoebe,_

 _We have to do something about Harry. He's got bars on his window now! Mum told Dumbledore but they won't do anything unless he doesn't show up for school. You and Thomas can figure something out, right? Write me back as soon as you can. I'm worried._

 _~ S._

Phoebe flipped the letter over, dug a pen out of the bag she carried on her belt loop and wrote her response on the back.

 _Serena,_

 _I'll write Thomas and we'll come up with something. If we can get past tasks set to stop Voldemort, I think we can handle a barred window._

 _~ P._

She sent the letter back with the owl and ran to get more paper. She needed to write Thomas and come up with a plan of attack. And, considering what she knew of the Dursley family, it was going to be an attack.

* * *

It was less than four weeks away from the start of term. Logic said that waiting for Dumbledore would get them in less trouble. But Phoebe wasn't a logical person; she was the type of person that broke rules for the right reasons. Which explained why she was wheeling her motorcycle down the driveway and praying that her adoptive family wouldn't wake up before she returned.

It was going to be a long night, Phoebe knew. She'd taken precautions and slept during the day, feigning feeling ill to avoid her new parents' questions. She hoped that Thomas was smart enough to do the same, but she had a feeling that he'd been too hyped up with excitement to even attempt it. Well, it wouldn't be a complete disaster if he did fall asleep. She'd be the only one driving the motorcycle and she could always duck tape him in so he didn't fall off.

Looking back over her shoulder, she realized she was at least half a mile from the house. It was far enough. She stooped down, checked to ensure the sidecar was properly attached and then swung herself onto the bike. It roared to life as she started it and she glanced over her shoulder in worry. No light came on in the house; they must not have heard.

Phoebe rolled the motorcycle forward, picking up speed on the gravel road before finally pulling it up into the air. The cool wind whipped around her face, stinging her skin. But it was exciting to be flying and to be flying towards something that would, no doubt, be even more exciting.

Flying to Thomas's house took over an hour, but finding it was a bit harder. The cottage was dark and almost completely over-grown with plant life. If it wasn't for the massive tree house, she wouldn't have looked twice at the property. Phoebe parked the motorcycle outside one of the shuttered windows of the tree-house, letting it hover as she waited.

It took less than three seconds for Thomas to throw open the shutters and stick his head out. An excited grin crossed his face.

"Let's hit the road... or sky... Where'd you get that?" Thomas clumsily climbed out the window and onto the motorcycle, with Phoebe grabbing his arm in case he fell.

"Dear old dad." She responded bitterly, then looked over her shoulder at him as he settled down behind her. "Did you make the list?" A piece of paper was shoved in her face, with a long list of items they were going to need.

"Got it. You got the money?"

"Yep." She'd tagged along with Tonks to Diagon Alley a few days prior and exchanged some wizard money for muggle money. A grin spread across his face once more and he stuffed the paper back into the pocket of his jeans.

"Let's go!"


End file.
